tom tom

It’s the season, finally. I guess this ties-in with my reading of Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. August and September comprise tomato season around these parts – and every other part, I guess – so I’m anticipating pounds of tomatoes rendered into tomato sauces, plates of tomatoes for dinner, and salads galore. I’ll begin tracking the events somewhere on a notepad, and, maybe with my camera. The Kojo Nnamdi show had a piece on tomatoes today that included the WaPo deputy editor who mans their annual tomato recipe contest – pop over here if you want to see the winning recipes. With the explosion of peaches (nearing it’s end) and tomatoes (some of the heirlooms were out last weekend) at the DuPont Farmer’s Market last weekend we’re getting well deep into the best time of the market shopping year. Laurel and I spent three Sunday mornings at DuPont and one Sunday morning at Eastern Market enjoying the full summer offerings and bringing home bags and bags of fresh fruit and veg. In fact, I think I have some freestone peaches at home that are just about ready for a tart.

I decided to take a walkabout the neighborhood last evening to make sure Lemon hadn’t come to a horrible fate. Last spring she spent some time at a house around the corner so I decided to give them a knock and ask if they’d seen her over the last few days. Sure enough, she’d just been there and they’d been feeding her wet food, twice a day, over the last few days. I didn’t see her relaxing under any bushes as I left but at least I knew she was alive. About ten minutes after I got home there was a knock on the door and the wife, who hadn’t been there during my visit, had brought Lemon over in a carrier. She’d just gotten home and heard of the inquiry so she brought Lemon to the house. We had a very nice chat about Lemon’s lack of bulk – I don’t think she’ll ever be a bulky cat – and her initial worry that Lemon might be going hungry. In the end, she apologized for feeding her and said that now that she knew where she lived she’d feel better about seeing her slink about the streets. Lemon came in the house, had some food, got some pets, and eventually passed out peacefully on the couch. I happened to think it was all a combination of getting some nice moist cat food, we only feed her dry, and her pitching a kitty fit in protest of our week away.