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The Slice: Nothing compares to a homegrown tomato
Let’s talk tomatoes.
“The best tomato I ever had was at my girlfriend’s house,” wrote Kandi Burnham of Rathdrum. “She was growing her own tomatoes in the backyard so we decided to make BLT sandwiches — white bread with real mayonnaise. Those tomatoes were the best, freshest, juiciest tomatoes I ever had. They were so good we had to make another sandwich. This was probably 20 years ago in Southern California.”
Herb Postlewait also remembers staggeringly good BLTs. “My Montana grandparents had a huge garden, just south of Shelby. They raised tomatoes and lettuce and baked their own bread. That was also before bacon had nitrates and water added. You know where this is going. Pure heaven.”
Moscow’s Jane Hess offered this. “As a transplanted Jersey Girl, I will guarantee that the Garden State’s tomatoes are the best in the nation. I have to say that Northwest tomatoes taste like plastic in comparison. As a kid, I loved a thick slice of salted beefsteak tomato between two slices of white bread slathered with mayo. Yum!”
Bill Hudson can pinpoint his No. 1. “Ah, the best tomato. At Hildo Edica’s truck farm west of Wapato, Wash., in 1963.”
Spokane Valley’s Jim Clanton remembers his favorite. It was last Thursday. “It was this year’s first ripe tomato on my Topsy Turvy. Sixty-five days of restless anticipation watching the little orbs slowly grow and redden makes that first bite pure heaven. Of course, the first home-grown tomato to ripen each year is always the best because once the last one is consumed in September, it’s back to the store-bought red cardboard things.”
And Linda Crump remembers when her late husband, Larry, would bring her the first ripe tomato from their garden. She would eat it over the sink with just a little salt.
Mail call: When returning errant mail to the post office, you can help avoid further confusion by recognizing the difference between “not at this address” and “delivered to wrong address.”
Today’s Slice question: How do you decide that your car needs to be washed?