Is there a statute of limitations on New Years’ resolutions?
I love cookbooks. But don’t cook.
Could that be one of the reasons for my love of tomatoes? All that flavour, aroma, colour, juiciness and texture and not a pot or pan in sight!
However this year I decided, change was needed. This year I would cook. And now it’s April. And…and it’s not quite gone to plan.
Nigel Slater. Cooks up as brilliantly with words as he does with food. So my idea was to follow his year as captured in ‘the kitchen diaries’ and suitably inspired, I would soon be having ‘what he’s having’.
From the nice ribbon bookmark I see Nigel and I seem to have last had dinner together on the 7th February. Nigel ate lamb shanks with mustard and mash and I was most likely having… oh let’s see…. fish fingers and petits pois. (Sorry… pathetic attempt to let you know these weren’t just any frozen peas….)
Anyway this weekend I felt the need to pick up ‘the kitchen diaries’ and have another read/go. Well if I was looking for a sign that it was an auspicious time for another spin of the spatula I found it.
In his entry for April 11th Nigel records taking delivery of his tiny tomato plants. (And having relented and whacked my central heating back on I empathetically noted the rain water which had collected on his garden chairs, froze overnight.) His 4 tomato choices were:
Costoluto Fiorentino
Gardeners Delight
Marmande
Plus one he doesn’t name but describes it as having ripe apricot hued flesh. I have tried to search for what it might have been but with no success.
So given the synchronicity of timing (although in getting plants he will be a few weeks ahead of our Easter seeds) and being similarly tried by current temperatures and rain, I felt I had to read ahead and see how the year turned out tomato wise !!
These were the entries I could find:
17th June : 1st tomato appears
12th July : Bunches of green tomatoes
13th August : Ripe tomatoes
26th October : Last of the tomatoes
So that’s official. I am now a celebrity tomato stalker!
Photo by Dulcie
