“Give yourself permission to imagine who you could be beyond the boxes you have always known.” ~ Unknown
hello dolly!
Robin gave me a bag of tomatoes she’d grown called Dolly Parton tomatoes. Why they’re called Dolly Partons should be obvious. If not… this is not the blog for you today. Robin handed me a paper Dairy Queen bag of unripe Dollys and gave me strict instructions to leave them in the bag, closed. She learned from her mother and grandmother that tomatoes ripen better when picked while still unripe, placed in a paper bag, and kept in a cool, dry place. They will slowly ripen. I’d only ever ripened them in a kitchen window like my mother and grandmothers. This morning, I had a hankerin’ for huevos rancheros, so I opened the tomato bag, and where there were once five unripe Dolly Partons there were now four very ripe ones. I sliced into the best. It was the beefiest tomato I’d ever cut into, which seemed only fitting given the name, and it was delicious. Not overly sweet or strongly flavored, but hearty and smooth in texture. I got to thinking about tomatoes as I ate. Technically, they’re classified as a fruit (from South America) even though we eat them as a vegetable. They’re also members of the nightshade family, which includes potatoes and peppers, as well as toxic plants. For instance, when I hear “nightshade,” I think of toxins like Belladonna. Kill you dead in no time. Even tobacco is in the nightshade family, and as much as we might like to smoke it, there’s a reason we shouldn’t. In any case, I seriously doubt the Dolly Partons are an heirloom variety, like Uncle Tony with his Granny Cantrells, but the name alone makes them worth growing. Either way, summer home-grown tomatoes are good eatin’, and I sure appreciate a friend that gives me a bag full every now and then.
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