Heirloom

Heirloom:

Something of special value handed on from one generation to another.

So this is an heirloom tomato not a locket....but just go with it. August = tomatoes. God I love them! I love making caprese salad, I love making marinara and more than anything I love being super southern and classy and making tomato sandwiches. Yea you heard it here first...I'm super classy. Don't get me wrong, sometimes I love going to an amazing restaurant and eating a three hour dinner. But sometimes I just want to wear flip-flops, sit on my porch and let tomato juice run down my chin. More on that later.....

My parents are from the pseudo-Midwest (Indiana and Kentucky) so I didn't exactly grow up eating traditional southern cuisine. Subsequently, I have very vivid memories of the first time I ate something that I consider to be quintessentially southern. One of those memories involves tomato sandwiches. I'm sure I'm going to get an angry email from a reader who grew up in Iowa and lived off tomato sandwiches, but this is my blog and I consider them southern so get over it!

Anyway...one day I was at a friend's house eating Sunday lunch after a long morning playing Marco Polo and Sharks and Minnows at the pool. Her mom made us sandwiches. Jackpot! I was starving. I looked at the sandwich unfortunately perplexed however, and leaned over to my friend...I think your mom forgot the rest of it. She smiled and said no it's a tomato sandwich. I was like huh? What the heck is that? Where's the ham? Where's the bacon? Can you tell I like meat?

Then I took my first bite and I was kind of a goner. I've been eating them ever since but in August the tomatoes are best so I try and cram in as many trips down memory lane as I can. I'm very particular though and for gods' sake this is not the time to be healthy. So we're talking white bread...American, processed bread. Duke's mayonnaise, there is no substitute. And when you think you've put too much on that's your cue to add just a little more. Salt and pepper that baby up and finish it off with two thick slices of mouth-wateringly fabulous tomato. God it's good! Luckily my neighbor Kristen grows heirloom tomatoes in her garden so August is looking pretty awesome.

In fact, if you stop by my place between now and Labor Day, you'll probably find me on the porch with tomato juice running down my chin extolling the virtues of said sandwiches. As far as I can tell that might be the only heirloom I pass down to my niece and nephew. But hey, they have a special value to me and that's what the word actually means anyway. For the first time in my life maybe I'm wrong? Well...maybe the second time. There was that uncomfortable incident at the French Embassy:).