Golden, and (still) there for the picking.

I can't let go. These days, I'm always looking for them; tomatoes, I mean. I'm pinching back the tomato blossoms in the garden, hoping the tomatoes that have already formed will actually have time to ripen in this new season of reduced sunlight and deepening chill. Bite a garden tomato and you bite into summer. And I can't let go of summer. Not willingly, anyway. The chopped gorgeousness above consists of Délice d'Or, but for yellow you can find your fill with creamy-gold Ivory Egg, the orange-sized Valencias, a handful of Remy Jaune, tiny and sweet as candy (and a more yellowy version of the cherry tomatoes I picked in the top image), pointy pepper-seeming Roman Candle, the faithful Marmande Jaune, the Téton de Vénus jaune (Venus' Breast) and let's not forget the sumptuous, pink-streaked beefsteak, Mortgage Lifter Yellow. It is the prose of the warmer days; don't tempt me to go on--there are well over 12,000 known varieties of tomatoes in nearly all the colors. These are the yellow ones I know and love, in part for their sunny appearance, in part for their sweet nature. Yellow tomatoes are generally less acid, and more on the fruity side. You will love them fresh, but try chopping them up finely and simmering them ever so briefly as Heidi does, and you have a pure-tasting sauce fit for the gods. Rather than going with fresh as she did, I added oven-roasted garlic instead (there's always an oil-topped jar of that in the fridge), to play up that intense tomato sweetness. The sauce is superb served unadulterated over quenelles lyonnaise (an airy, eggy, oval dumpling). Any permutation of pasta will do, of course. If you happen to have other vegetables on hand as I did, then throw in something sautéed, such as eggplant, add a sprinkling of torn fresh basil and just-grated Parmesan. Like me, take the photo before adding the last two ingredients, so you can still see those goldenrod bits of tomato. Actually, I can confirm this sauce is gorgeous in spoonfuls direct from the saucepan.If you did something truly wonderful in a long-ago previous life, you might just know a local producer of Ananas (i.e. Pineapple) tomatoes. This variety redefines tomato-ness. It can grow to a kilo (that's one, single tomato). There are very few seeds, and it's a highly aromatic sort, with a dense, magnificently juicy flesh. And oh, that fine, fine yellow-orange sweetness. So here's my recipe for this, perhaps my very favorite variety of tomato.

Allow the tomatoes to ripen fully someplace warm and bright in your kitchen. You'll know they're ready when hazy streaks of red appear at the flowering ends, and all traces of green are gone. Slice, sprinkle a minute amount of fleur de sel, and drizzle with the grassiest, brightest olive oil you can get your hands on. Afterward, if you're feeling nostalgic for that extraordinary last mouthful, read Pablo Neruda for solace: you aren't alone in loving tomatoes.

Ode To Tomatoes

- Pablo Neruda

The street
filled with tomatoes,
midday,
summer,
light is
halved
like
a
tomato,
its juice
runs
through the streets.
In December,
unabated,
the tomato
invades
the kitchen,
it enters at lunchtime,
takes
its ease
on countertops,
among glasses,
butter dishes,
blue saltcellars.
It sheds
its own light,
benign majesty.
Unfortunately, we must
murder it:
the knife
sinks
into living flesh,
red
viscera
a cool
sun,
profound,
inexhaustible,
populates the salads
of Chile,
happily, it is wed
to the clear onion,
and to celebrate the union
we
pour
oil,
essential
child of the olive,
onto its halved hemispheres,
pepper
adds
its fragrance,
salt, its magnetism;
it is the wedding
of the day,
parsley
hoists
its flag,
potatoes
bubble vigorously,
the aroma
of the roast
knocks
at the door,
it's time!
come on!
and, on
the table, at the midpoint
of summer,
the tomato,
star of earth, recurrent
and fertile
star,
displays
its convolutions,
its canals,
its remarkable amplitude
and abundance,
no pit,
no husk,
no leaves or thorns,
the tomato offers
its gift
of fiery color
and cool completeness.

(Thank you, Jennifer.)