Saturday, August 9, 2008

Tomato Tasting A Rousing Success!


And this morning we harvested 15 Salisaw Cafes, 11 Stupice, 5 Old Ivory Eggs, 4 Cherokee Chocolates, 3 Blue Fruit (one 6 ounces), 3 Black Krims (11 ounces, 6.5 ounces, 10 ounces, back yard), 2 Aker's Plums, 2 Jaune Flammes, 2 Lime Green Salads (back yard), Arkansas Traveler, Red Yellow Cap (8 ounces), Piccolo, Italian Market Wonder, White Bush, Husky Cherry Red, Black Krim (13.5 ounces, front yard), Pierce's Pride, Chocolate Stripes (6 ounces), Aunt Ruby's German Green and Green Grape.

We went to a tomato tasting at a restaurant in Hollywood later in the morning. We brought Evan's Italian Plum, Olga's Round Yellow Chicken and Pierce's Pride to the tomato tasting.

I was expecting to have an enjoyable time but wow, this was really fun! There were all sorts of tomatoes to be sampled. Someone had already brought Pierce's Pride but no one else brought Evan's Italian Plum (we brought the three we've harvested) and Olga's Round Yellow Chicken (we brought one). We tried a lot of tomatoes and we really liked several of them. Some of the memorable ones for us included Nyagous, Siberian, Jetsetter, Napa Grape but the most striking tomato was called Vintage Wine. Not so much the taste (only okay by me) but the striping was very memorable. We'll be on the lookout for these and other tomatoes next year.

The Polish Pastel on display looked different than what we're harvesting. Another mislabel?

We met several nice people at this event and exchanged business cards with a couple of them. An interesting point made by a participant: “That's the first party were I never asked anyone what was their occupation. We just talked tomatoes!”

People were very happy with the taste of Olga's Round Yellow Chicken – the tomato was nearly gone by the end of the party. Scott Daigre (of Tomatomania!) said that the 9 ounce Evan's Italian Plum is about twice the normal size for this tomato.

Now we wish we brought Black Krim, Salisaw Cafe and Old Ivory Egg, for example. Maybe next year.

We had the Red Currant pulled by the gardeners. What a great plant!!


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