Best Tomato Sandwich Ever

Everyone who grows tomatoes here has a routine. they have a special place or person they buy their plants from, or they nurture them from seed, moving the seedlings from tiny pots to bigger pots and 'hardening them off' before putting them into the ground. 

Our friend Kelly drove from Sebastopol to Cotati to buy his plants from two sisters. Now Kelly is a busy man with many, many irons in the fire and as he drove back to Sebastopol his attention shifted 
to assembling a new greenhouse for his new plants. But he forgot to take the plants out of the back of his his car. When he finished the greenhouse and remembered the plants they didn't look so good. He went back to the sisters in Cotati and said, "I think there's something wrong with these plants." The sisters peered into his trunk and said, "They're dead."
Kelly bought some more plants.

OilMan tried the seed route one year, but it didn't work out so well, so we usually go to the Harvest for the Hungry Garden which has a big plant sale. They sell lots of veggies, but the thing every body goes for, and waits in line for and rushes into grab as soon as the gates open is the tomatoes which have been grown from seed by the Master gardeners who work there.

This year we were on an Amtrak train when the plant sale happened, but our Italian neighbor, Daniela, swears by the plants at Ma and Pa's stand at the Sebastopol Farmers' Market. The first time we went there, Ma and Pa weren't there and the second time we went we were a bit late so there weren't many plants left, and they weren't labeled, so we just grabbed some.

Several were cherry tomatoes, two were quite flavorful but very small. A third was an odd colored heirloom called  'Ananas Noir' (Black Pineapple)...People tend to give tomatoes odd names. Last year we had one called 'Astronaut Volkov'. Most of them don't offer much of a clue of what the tomato will taste like or even what color it will be.

Our Ananas Noir seemed to be about the right size and softness although they were mostly green. I picked them anyway and  was more than a little surprised to see the beautiful mosaic that was revealed when I sliced one.

I live for this time of year when I can make myself a tomato sandwich...good bread, plenty of mayonnaise, sliced tomatoes and slat and pepper. The good bread in our drawer turned out to be whole wheat with walnuts and apricots. I didn't seem quite the thing for a tomato sandwich but I did it anyway because it was all we had.

It was the best tomato sandwich ever....