Cherry Tomato Salad

I am a raw tomato addict. It runs in the family.

The story goes that all my mother ate when she was pregnant with me was raw tomatoes so the lust for them must have been transferred to me while still in the womb. And for as long as I can remember the ushering in of summer in my childhood home involved finding massive amounts of tomatoes, taking them home, slicing them, and standing around in the kitchen eating them. All of us looming around a puddled cutting board of juicy red tomatoes, the liquid running down our arms while we devour these succulent bits of red tomato flesh.

There were also a lot of tomato, Miracle Whip and white bread toast sandwiches involved. Which has consistently been one of my favorite things to eat. I could have one everyday for weeks and never get sick of them. When I read Tom Robbin's essay about tomato, mayonnaise and white bread sandwiches being the best food on earth I fell a little in love with him. It's called Til Lunch Do Us Part and you can read part of it in the book preview on Amazon if you want to thoroughly understand the term “food porn.” Then you should read Skinny Legs and All or one his other novels because he's a genius.

Tom Robbins was the first person outside of my family I'd ever heard talk about the joy of raw tomatoes, almost everyone else I've encountered finds eating them as if they were candy an unusual thing. It's something the fella and I tease one another about on a regular basis. He hates them, I love them, how can we possibly stay together with such opposed views on such an important issue. Somehow we soldier on, obviously we just stay together for the dog.

Sadly bread, white or otherwise is not part of this French diet so I've been feeling the lack of my favorite sandwich for some time now. I do still have tomatoes however which our CSA share has been providing us in great abundance. There are pounds of them in the kitchen at the moment and more keep coming every week. I finally hit the too many tomatoes point this week, when I started dreading just eating them raw and had to start finding things to put them in.

Luckily Mark Bittman has a very handy recipe for easily taking care of large amounts cherry tomatoes in a yummy way. It seems too easy to be that good but it really is. And yes I will eventually start posting something other than salads soon. I've just been short on free time and not feeling up to turning on the stove now that summer here in Wisconsin has finally decided to start. So for now here is another salad sans lettuce.

Cherry Tomato Salad

2 handfuls cherry tomatoes
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 large dash dark sesame oil
1 sprig cilantro

Cut tomatoes in half. Place in bowl.

Whisk together soy sauce and sesame oil. Pour over tomatoes and toss thoroughly.

Garnish with coarsely chopped cilantro.

This is even better the second day after it has sat chilling out in the fridge over night marinating until the tomatoes are little salty tart bombs that explode on your tongue.

Recipe from Mark Bittman in The New York Times.