Tomatoes everywhere ...

I've been dealing a lot in tomatoes lately. This point in the fall the newness of tomatoes has worn off and the processing them for the winter begins in earnest. I have been drying, crushing, freezing and eating tomatoes. This processing has made me convinced I really do need to learn how to can them. It would be much more efficient. But, until that day, I deal with them by drying, crushing and freezing.

Barbara Kingsolver, in her book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle talks about processing tons of tomatoes. Ok, well, not tons, but close--she weighed them. Her youngest daughter refers to her as "Mama, the Tomato Queen" and used up all her red crayons in portrait after portrait. I have not yet committed this kind of insanity. But is it really insanity? As Kingsolver mentions, those tomatoes she puts up in the summer and fall will still be local in February. And in February they look to her like glowing red Valentine's.

Tomatoes are so versatile and such an important part of so many recipes and there are plenty of really good organic canned varieties, but this for me is not simply a matter of eating locally or organically, although it is in part. It is also about making sure the farmers from whom I buy all these tomatoes will be here next year. I am trying to pay them for their time and their effort.

Especially this year. It has been a rough year for a lot of people in the agricultural business here in Eastern Washington. A lot of people lost some of their crops -- and tomatoes were hit hard. The coolness of the weather was not what the tomatoes wanted. A few weeks ago one of the farmers I frequent at the Downtown Farmers Market was interviewed by the local paper about the slow tomato crop and what to do if your home garden was a victim. So I have been buying more tomatoes from them and from every farmers market I go to, since I do know how to deal with tomatoes now for using later better than for other crops.

Yesterday I dried some tomatoes and turned others into sauce. And I also ate some. There is one benefit to this strange weather we have been having. There was some late arugula at the farmers market yesterday which turned into an arugula, tomato and warm bacon dressing salad that was just amazing.

But I am pretty sure that the dried tomato pesto, spaghetti sauce, and other items this winter made with the tomatoes I am putting up now will be amazing, too. Amazing that some of summer has made its way into winter and will be a reminder of gratitude for the growing season past and of the growing season ahead.