Some years ago, Colin and I were working the Cody’s 4th St. info desk together. He had been doing star charts for some of the other employees through a wonderful, fast free program on line. Now, the last time my chart had been read was when I was about 17 and it really made me angry. That chart claimed I was a Christian and described some other things I wasn’t, yet. But when Colin offered a fresh reading, I laughed and said “sure.” So the adept took my bona fides (place, time and date of birth) and put them into the program. What popped up was the same chart that I’d rejected so vehemently, so long ago. He warned me that the middle of my house (the kitchen) is a snare that can keep me from doing other, important things. Yes, dear man, I do understand, my kitchen can eat my life when all I do is ask for some unwanted tomatoes.
My darling friend Kathryn sits houses (she does a whole lot of other things that we won’t go into now), and at one of these, there is a gardener who can’t resist a tomato seed. According to my friend, this over-planting happens every year, and the provender is foisted on Kathryn. This year she passed some of this year’s bounty on to me. But what would you do with 40 pounds of fresh, homegrown Roma tomatoes? You can’t eat them all, no matter how hard you try (this includes you Mommy). What came kept me busy for a whole week. It was an avalanche and I got out my shovel. Tomatoes are food and wasting food is a sin. Homegrown tomatoes are a gift of this great state and her gardeners. So I had to preserve all those tomatoes. Not being a canner (it’s just too much work) I did what I can—I made sauce.
Marcella Hazan’s indispensable cookbook taught me just how easy it is to make marinara. But having a recipe does not make marinara. There are basic tools necessary and, primarily, you need a big pot, at least 2½ gallon. Yes, it can be aluminum, it doesn’t give you Alzheimer’s. It must have a heavy, thick bottom to heat the sauce evenly and avoid scorching. (If you don’t have a pot like this, go get one! It will be good for chowder, chili, stew, soup and any other single pot meals.) Once the tomatoes et al. are ready for pureeing, your best weapon is a hand blender, called by some a “boat motor.” This wonderful thing replaces food mills and sieves. The only thing it doesn’t do is remove the seeds, but, not being Martha Stewart, I don’t care. (Don’t get one with a plastic head, it will crack and you’ll just have to buy a new one. Put your money down, get a stainless-steel-headed blender and go to it.)
I was boiling my fourth pot of tomatoes, onions and garlic, when Kathryn suggested roasting these elements. She said this while bringing in four more bags of Romas and bag of cherry tomatoes. Here is what I’ve learned: roasting produces a darker, richer flavor and oregano can overpower the delicate fresh taste.
The other great lesson of this adventure is how fresh tomatoes cook down. I made one quart of paste, a gallon of just cooked tomatoes and a remoulade with a red bell pepper. When all the sauces went into gallon freezer bags, there was a total of eight gallons of tomatoes in the cold place, just waiting. We have already eaten and shared four of them and it’s only early November.
All of this cooking took about four days, four days in the middle of my house. Colin’s chart was right, the kitchen can eat my time. But, it’s only once a year, and in the words of Guy Clark, “Ain’t nothing in the world like homegrown tomatoes.”
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