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This Sunday, August 9th, the Tomato Lovers Collective holds its first ever West Coast Tomato Tasting and Seed Swap in Lodi, California. Bring tomatoes to taste, bring seeds to swap if you saved any, and come empty handed if you did not, because nobody is checking at the door. We are not the organizers. We are the shirt sponsor, which is the role we are happiest in: every gardener who confirmed with Jamie in the group got a code for a free shirt, any design, any size, any color. Somebody else picked the date and set out the tables. All we did was send shirts.
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The East Coast table is next, and that one is in its second year: Friday, August 28th, noon to 6pm Eastern, at the Main Pavilion in Letort Park, Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Jen and Lauren are hosting, there is a suggested $5 donation at the pavilion, and the invitation is genuinely open to anyone who wants to come. So if you are within a tank of gas of Carlisle, go. Bring whatever is ripe on the 28th, bring seeds if you have them, and bring a folding chair if you like sitting down.
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If you have never been to one of these, it is not a competition and nobody is judging anything. Somebody brings a Cherokee Purple, somebody brings a Brandywine that split in the rain, somebody brings the volunteer that came up in the compost pile and turned out to be the best one on the table. There is salt. There is bread. There is a long argument about whether you refrigerate them, which nobody wins. Two hours later a group of strangers are friends, which is the actual harvest. And if you are near neither coast, the whole thing scales down to any porch: pick everything that is ripe, slice it, salt it, and hand a plate to whoever is nearest. Invite one neighbor. It costs nothing, and it is the only recipe we have ever sent you.
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