As I loaded the meager (considering the eighteen plants in my garden) offering I had to sample into my panniers, Corinna predicted that I would arrive with nothing but tomato paste.
I thought it odd advice, given this is a person who will slap a bike inner tube over slices of pizza to transport it so we can eat it 'some place better.' I thought the pizza-by-the-slice restaurant was a fine place to eat pizza.
I had my tomatoes packed mostly in a hotel ice bucket slid into a pannier, which kept them from being compressed by anything but each other. When I got there, a couple had split slightly, but they were far from paste.
A friend expressed regret that she hadn't brought her bike rack, so she could offer me a ride. Then she realized that I had a car, I rode fifteen miles to the tasting because it pleased me to do so.
There's sometimes a strange balance of pity between car people who assume that a transportational cyclist is only riding because of poverty or excessive DUI arrests, and transportational cyclists who wish car people knew half what they were missing out on.
Local Pig, which turns out to be owned by a friend of mine from the homebrewing/beer judging world donated bacon for BLTs. And what bacon it was: no brine, humanely raised, local pork that walks in their back door and gets sold out the front.
We had about sixty varieties of tomatoes to sample, and tickets to vote on our five favorite. I felt that was too few, I think I voted for Purple Haze, Paul Robeson, Barracker's Favorite, Black Cherry, Carbon, and then went, Wait! What about Cherokee Purple?
And a few others. There are tomatoes I don't like, but they are in a definite minority at an heirloom and boutique hybrid tasting.
And I got a great picture of my friend Julie. Julie is a great photographer, which is why it's hard to get a good picture of her, since she's normally hiding behind a monstrous full-frame camera and a big-ass lens.
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