Jersey Tomatoes

Among the things i will miss most when I relocate away from NJ are the awesome tomatoes that appear at farm stands during the close of the summer. Believe it or not, New Jersey was deemed "The Garden State" for a reason. Jersey tomatoes are so plump and juicy that they melt in your mouth. In fact, tomatoes grow so well in NJ that the Cambells Corporation grows most of the tomatoes for their tomato soup here.

This memoir was inspired last weekend when one of my older neighbors pulled me aside from a long walk. While chatting, he invited me into his backyard to show me his garden. There must have been 30 tomato plants in full bloom. There were so many more than he could possibly eat, cook, pickle, or etc. that he invited me to pick as many as i wanted. I was more than happy to take a dozen or more, softball sized, perfectly ripe Jersey tomatoes off his plants before they fell on the ground and rotted. For a week straight I had a tomato with almost every meal!