Some Days the Mountain Comes to You
Recently at WinCo they had little bags of miniature San Marzano tomatoes on sale for 98¢ a bag. That was a good deal, so I picked one up! I ended up enjoying it quite mightily: While not as delicious as cherry tomatoes, the flavor was quite pronounced and pleasant, and they were surprisingly fun to eat on account of their size and texture. Quite impressive for a greenhouse tomato!
All in all, a lovely experience, and I hoped to see them again when I went to WinCo yesterday. Well, thanks be to the Unicorn, they were still in stock, and still 98¢ a bag! This time I figured to get two or three bags. But when looking at the back of one of the bags, I happened to notice where they were from:
Marfa, Texas!
That's right out where I used to live. Amy and I drove past those greenhouses many times. The company that these so-called Heavenly Villagio Marzano Tomatoes come from, Village Farms, is all over the continent, but it just so happens that they grow (at least some of) the miniature Marzanos at their Marfa Division.
So naturally I doubled my purchase to six bags.
I've been eating them in droves. I also toasted some ciabatta in the oven yesterday night and made a simple, lovely tomato sandwich with them and a little mayonnaise.
What a pleasant surprise, to encounter such a delicious tomato, at such a good price, all the way out in Washington State, that comes from that remote little corner of the world. What are the odds!! Nobody lives out there. And the greenhouses aren't that large. It's hard to imagine them supplying a major grocer so plentifully.
I've been through this little song and dance many times: They won't last. This is either a short-term or even a one-time thing. But, with that expectation, I'm going to enjoy the heck outta them while I can! I shoulda bought twelve bags, frankly! There were enough of them.
I often think about the places my food has been. It's usually so much more well-traveled than me! And I like to imagine I absorb a tiny bit of their worldliness by eating them. It's hard to describe the feeling of getting to eat a little piece of the enchanted Far West Texas land I came from. (Or, well, sojourned in.) The water in these tomatoes...I've drunk that water before. It's from the aquifer; same water all around. In fact the greenhouse operations are of questionable sustainability for that very reason. But hopefully, being enclosed, it's not so bad.
So nostalgic. Every tomato I eat grew up under that same Far West Texas Sun; breathed in that same Far West Texas air. To eat one is almost to visit back there, a little piece of "there."
Some days the Mountain comes to you. ❤️
All in all, a lovely experience, and I hoped to see them again when I went to WinCo yesterday. Well, thanks be to the Unicorn, they were still in stock, and still 98¢ a bag! This time I figured to get two or three bags. But when looking at the back of one of the bags, I happened to notice where they were from:
Marfa, Texas!
That's right out where I used to live. Amy and I drove past those greenhouses many times. The company that these so-called Heavenly Villagio Marzano Tomatoes come from, Village Farms, is all over the continent, but it just so happens that they grow (at least some of) the miniature Marzanos at their Marfa Division.
So naturally I doubled my purchase to six bags.
I've been eating them in droves. I also toasted some ciabatta in the oven yesterday night and made a simple, lovely tomato sandwich with them and a little mayonnaise.
What a pleasant surprise, to encounter such a delicious tomato, at such a good price, all the way out in Washington State, that comes from that remote little corner of the world. What are the odds!! Nobody lives out there. And the greenhouses aren't that large. It's hard to imagine them supplying a major grocer so plentifully.
I've been through this little song and dance many times: They won't last. This is either a short-term or even a one-time thing. But, with that expectation, I'm going to enjoy the heck outta them while I can! I shoulda bought twelve bags, frankly! There were enough of them.
I often think about the places my food has been. It's usually so much more well-traveled than me! And I like to imagine I absorb a tiny bit of their worldliness by eating them. It's hard to describe the feeling of getting to eat a little piece of the enchanted Far West Texas land I came from. (Or, well, sojourned in.) The water in these tomatoes...I've drunk that water before. It's from the aquifer; same water all around. In fact the greenhouse operations are of questionable sustainability for that very reason. But hopefully, being enclosed, it's not so bad.
So nostalgic. Every tomato I eat grew up under that same Far West Texas Sun; breathed in that same Far West Texas air. To eat one is almost to visit back there, a little piece of "there."
Some days the Mountain comes to you. ❤️