Some time within the past couple of years (how’s that for specificity?) I spotted Molly Wizenberg’s book at a trip to the downtown branch of the Denver Public Library. (A truly beautiful place, by the way.) I’d never heard of her and was attracted solely by the adorable cover. (You may remember my post on her second book, Delancey, and our trip there when we visited Seattle this past summer.) Although the descriptions and reviews of this book usually say that it’s written about the death of Molly’s father, there’s a lot more to it than that. I guess it could be classified under the dreaded “coming of age” heading, but the writing is so good and so free from sentimentality, and there’s so much about food and cooking in it, that the teenage and young-adult angst woven throughout is tolerable. Even funny at times.
The food anecdote and recipe that stood out in my mind was of something called “slow-roasted tomatoes.” The way I remembered it, her father had done his usual tomato planting the year he got his cancer diagnosis, but by the time the tomatoes were ripe he was too ill to do anything with them. Molly and her mother couldn’t bear for them to be wasted and found this technique that used them up very efficiently. So the tomatoes were associated with her father’s death. But now, as I was writing this post, I looked up the section in the “look inside” feature on Amazon and discovered that it wasn’t quite like that. Her father got to enjoy the tomatoes after all, as he didn’t get really ill until the fall. “It was a very good summer,” she says. “Which is a good thing, as it turns out, because it was his last.” So she tries to slow-roast tomatoes whenever she can, in honor of that wonderful time. They represent a happy memory, not a sad one. I was so pleased to see that the title of the chapter in which the tomatoes are discussed is, simply, “Happiness.” (So now you know why this post is under “Intentional Happiness” rather than on the food page.)I also thought I remembered that Molly and her mother froze the tomatoes spread out on the pans so they didn’t stick together and then stored them in bags in the freezer, ready to be removed and used as desired, but now I can’t find those directions, either in the book or on her blog. Guess what? I’m doing it anyway. Otherwise, I’m being told to store the tomatoes in the fridge and use them within a week, and, as you can see from the pictures above, we’d have to eat tomatoes three times a day in order to do that. Not that it would be so terrible, as they’re really, really good–much juicier and softer than the actual sun-dried tomatoes you buy. I’ve already used some of them in a recipe, as a matter of fact–a remake of that wonderful tomato tart I made for the Labor Day cookout. (You’ll have to scroll down to about the middle of that post to find the recipe–I’m too lazy to do the work it takes to put in a link right before the appropriate place. Sorry!) Because the tomatoes are already somewhat dried out, you can skip the step of draining them.
The directions for roasting the tomatoes couldn’t be simpler: Wash tomatoes, cut out cores and any bad spots, cut in half lengthwise, spread out on foil-lined baking sheets, brush lightly with olive oil and sprinkle with salt. (You’re supposed to also sprinkle on a pinch of coriander, but I didn’t have any of that. Maybe next time.) Bake at 200 degrees for six hours. (I told Jim that I wouldn’t want to know how much the tomatoes actually cost if you figure in the electricity that you use.) These really aren’t worth making unless you start with good garden tomatoes, preferably ones you grew yourself and are madly trying to use up. The two varieties I grew this summer were Chocolate Cherokee and Chocolate Brandywine. The Cherokees were the most productive; Brandywine is an heirloom type and is supposed to be the most delicious tomato you can grow, but it’s very finicky and unpredictable. I don’t think I’ll bother with it again.
It’s such a nice, happy feeling to come back to something you enjoyed reading about or watching and actually participate in it. I feel as if I’m continuing a tradition with my own panfuls (pansful?) of beautiful red, crinkly tomatoes and am reminded of other times I’ve been able to do something similar. For instance, the time we visited Oxford in our trip to England in 2006 and rented a punt to go on the river, a la Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane. (You haven’t read Gaudy Night yet? What are you waiting for?) Is there something in your own life you could re-visit and re-create? I have sometimes felt as if I do too much learning about what other people do and not enough of doing things myself. Here’s a way to do both.
