“A world without tomatoes is like a string quartet without violins.” ~ Laurie Colwin (Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen, 2012)

We have a big love for tomatoes here in the Alphabet Soup kitchen. Wish we still had our own vegetable garden, as there’s nothing like freshly picked homegrown tomatoes for salads and sandwiches. Along with peaches, they represent the best part of summer.

SONNET #43, KITCHEN STYLE
by Kim O'Donnel

How do I love thee, tomato? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and might
My palate can reach, when remembering out of sight
Your peak month of August, when you bear fruits of juicy Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most urgent need for a BLT, by sun or moon-light.
I love thee with abandon, as Venus might her Mars or Vulcan.
I love thee purely, as surely as the summer wanes.
I love thee with the passion of my appetite
Above all fruits, and with my childhood's eye of Jersey tomatoes
As if they were falling from the sky.
I love thee with a hunger I seemed to lose
With my lost innocence (and the icky mealy tomatoes of January)! I love thee with the smell,
Unlike no other in the garden, and your vine-ripened sweetness
That bring me smiles, tears, only at this time of year! -- and if the farmers choose,
I shall but love thee better after many bowls of gazpacho.

~ This poem first appeared in the “What’s Cooking/A Mighty Appetite” column in The Washington Post (August 7, 2006).

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