Tuesday, October 7, 2008

You Say Tomato, I Say... YUMM!!

I decided just now that I felt like writing a blog about tomatoes. Perhaps its because I just read an incredible recipe for stuffed tomatoes on the Orangette Blog (which I intend to make tonight) or maybe its because this photo popped up on my rotating screen saver. I guess we'll never really know...



The picture displayed above is from my recent trip to Europe. While in Europe I took a trip to Italy with my Aunt and her family & friends. We rented a Villa outside of Oriveto in this little town called Ospedaletto - which means the "little hospital." It was little all right but I don't recall any hospitals.. anyway. So we did all our own shopping and cooking and it was splendid. The crate of tomatoes was purchased mere hours after we arrived and this was how full it was after 3 days there (we stay for 7) and we ate tomatoes with everything. It was like the neverending tomato supply.

I joked that none of us would ever get cancer from all the lycopene (antioxidant found in most things tomatoish) we were ingesting. We had Caprese Salad, Fresh Tomato Sauce, Tomatoes and olives drizzled in olive oil, pasta with diced tomatoes.... blah blah blah. It took a few days once we returned to Freiburg before I could look at a tomato.

We never made it to the bottom of the crate so we left the remaining (still fresh mind you) tomatoes to the wonderfully friendly italian caretakers of the villa.

A tomato is a tomato is a tomato, but there is something about eating a tomato in Italy from Italy that makes them taste infinitely better. Don't even get me started on the quality of the olives or the espresso... its enough to make you want to live there forever!

Ciao!

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