It is the last week of July, and I have yet to eat my first BLT of the summer. There are several culinary joys that I associate with summer, things like fried clams, corn on the cob, and watermelon. But for me, the first BLT, made with a home grown tomato, sits above all others. There is a sweetness in a tomato grown in your own soil that simply can not be matched by the one's you buy at the store. Even the farmer's market tomato lacks the panache of the home grown variety.
This, of course, may be entirely in my mind, and that would make perfect since. After all, I spend hours each spring preparing the soil for where my tomato plants will spread their roots. As soon as the second week in May arrives, I hurry to nursery store to select the most robust specimens I can find. I rush home, plant them, and make sure I have the perfect cage or enough clips to give them the support they need. And as the season progresses I watch over them for scourges like white fly or the hideous tomato worm. All of this effort would hardly be worth it if the same outcome could be matched by a trip to the grocery or farmer's market. But it simply is not.
Excitement accompanies seeing the first bee alight on the pale yellow flower. Anticipation floods as the bright green fruit swells and starts to ripen. Then, one morning, you step outside and there in the deep green of a 7-foot-vine rests a deep red globe. You pluck it, rush inside and rinse it off. You reach for a knife and slice into its flesh, not mushy like a tomato picked thousands of miles away, but dense like a perfectly roasted prime rib. The scent of the fresh tomato is part sunshine and part sweet acidity. You reach for the salt, just to give a sprinkle, and when you devour that first slice, you know. Every moment spent has been worth it. It's BLT Time, at last.
But not this year. This year it just has not been warm enough for optimal tomato plant growth. The few days of heat and humidity have be enveloped in weeks of sub-normal temperatures. Tomato plants don't like cool. They like hot and humid. Cool stresses them. Stress reduces fruit production. It all adds up to a terrible prognosis for BLTs.
There are some fruits on my tomato plants. My hybrid varieties, a Early Girl and a Beefsteak, are spotted with green offerings. But they are small, maybe twice the size of cherry tomatoes, and they are colored a deep green. They've been this way for weeks now. Apparently frozen in jade, apprehensive about taking that next step toward deliciousness.
The Chicago Tribune has a story today suggesting that this may be remembered as the year without summer. But here in the Recession Kitchen, two pounds of bacon sit in the freezer. The first lettuce has already bolted, and the next crop has yet to mature. And the tomatoes are napping the season away.
It is the year without BLTs.
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