Taste of Heaven

Omgoodness. If there was such a thing as a taste of heaven, this would be it.

First, I got about 4 lbs tomatoes out of the garden. I started out with the ripest ones and they made the best flavor. I cut them into quarters and put them in a roasting pan with a one inch side. Then I slathered them in olive oil, drizzled balsalmic vinegar over them, and added salt and pepper liberally. I tossed the whole thing with an entire head of pressed Carpathian Garlic, and put it in a 375* oven for 45 minutes. After it was done, I put the whole thing (including the juices) in my blender and 'processed' it until it was super super smooth. Then I added 1 tea of 21 Seasoning Saulte from Trader Joe's (I was in a hurry, or I would have used fresh herbs from the garden, and I almost am glad I was due to the end result). I could eat this stuff with a spoon. Seriously.

I got the idea and recipe from Delicious Wisdom. She has some amazing ideas for whole foods cooking. Some of them I can even mix with my locavore ideals and make some seriously good (and good for you) food.

Food has lately created such a conversation in my head. I can't quite seem to have it come out right in type yet. I have a passion about food that I can only slightly understand myself. Michael Pollan has a similar passion, and puts it so much better into words than I can describe. His last rule in In Defence of Food he writes:

"Cook and, if you can, plant a garden.

To take part in the intricate and endlessly interesting processes of providing for our sustenance is the surest way to escape the culture of fast food and the values implicit in it: that food should be fast, cheap, and easy; that food is a product of industry, not nature; that food is fuel, not a form of communion, with other people as well as with other species - with nature."

My start of this blog was to show the things I did in the kitchen and garden. When I started it, I was not yet a home schooler, or a guitar player, or even a sing pushing mother of three as I put in my intro-line. But I was a passionate cook, and an avid inner-city gardener. I even planted peas under the deck of my first apartment with my husband long before Cyan was born. They grew up through the railings of the deck and drove my landlord crazy every time he had to mow. Food, what goes into it and what I do with it, has been a passion of mine for as long as I can remember. I decided I was a vegetarian when I was 9 and kept that food faith until I was 23 years old. I have endless papers I wrote in college about nutrition and nutritional intuitiveness (which was my big thing back then)... even diet and it's links with ADHD (in 1999 it wasn't near the common knowledge it is today). Passion almost doesn't cover it... 'life long obsession' would be more accurate.

I have never before been able to afford the wealth of food I now have at my fingertips. Between the garden, the farm, and the farmers market, I now have whatever I need in the best form you can imagine, pretty much whenever I want. My kids are eating more good food, my husband is eating more good food... and those of you who actually know my husband that is really saying something, and I am passionately enjoying it more than ever... I really can't discribe it. It is just an amazing feeling for me to be able to create something like this sauce from food I never put any cash money into at all. Oh, I put worth into it... planting, watering, weeding, wondering if I was going to beat the frost so that these little beauties graced my table and not my compost... but it seems like nothing compared to the taste of summers bounty I have saved now in my freezer waiting for a midwinter taste explosion on the perfect piece of pizza or perfectly cooked pasta.

Now all I need to do is jar it up and market it... right?

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