"Tomatoes", or "I Did It!!!"

I confess that I have a mistress. I am deeply in love with Miss Cuisine. No need to whisper around my wife; she is aware of my deviance. My love of eating is only surpassed with the science, technology, and art of preparing food. There was a time in my life that I could have followed the path to culinary greatness (count your blessings, Bobby Flay), but I instead chose the better path that led me to where I am today. My experiences during high school of grilling finely cut steak over a raging inferno, whipping up sauces and soups of a French persuasion, and being mindful of the time bomb counting down until the plating of ten orders must be served together for a single table, have stuck with me for (dare I say it?) fifteen years.

If cooking is my whore, the Food Network is my pornography. On several occasions, I have found myself glued to the boob tube for an entire day just to find new, quirky recipes. The blends of ingredients astound me, especially if they are used in a way that is new to me, or better yet, if I have never heard of them. I salivate watching chefs choose produce from their expertly grown personal stock, and I think to myself, “THAT is what makes them a chef!” There is no substitution for fresh herbs and vegetables. Would Thomas Keller, owner and executive chef of the world famous French Laundry in Napa, use dried herbs, or so-called “fresh herbs” from his local Safeway? Inconceivable! I have had this “Eureka!” moment on several occasions and have aspired to grow my own personal garden more times than I care to recall.

If anyone has ever accused me of having a green thumb, they didn't realize that it is gangrenous. Of all the mightiest of great battles throughout recorded history, not one challenger has capitulated to a more crushing defeat than I have to Mother Nature. In the beginning, I would plant seeds in a pot of overpriced dirt from the local hardware conglomerate. I have over-watered, under-watered, and finally, after giving up, put my seedlings through a drought that would rival biblical famines. The next logical solution would be to swallow a little pride, skip the first step, and buy seedlings already sprouted by someone else in little disposable pots. The young tufts of green are perky and happy when they leave the store, but wilt at will as soon as they cross my threshold. It reminds me of a young, idealistic puppy that playfully rides along to the veterinarian’s office for the first time, only to discover he is not leaving with everything that he arrived with. The subsequent terrifying trips to the vet are the replicated experiences of new saplings entering my palace of vegetative death.

Earlier this summer (an inspiring time for gardeners), I was at my local over-priced grocery store that specializes in organic produce. Lo and behold, they have an entire area purposely located by their front doors dedicated to fresh, organic herb and tomato saplings. I walked by looking at them longingly, their future deaths firmly predicted in my mind. Strolling through the produce department, I began to concoct a recipe and knew I would need some fresh packaged herbs, but my God! Look what they charge for those things! I could buy the potted variety outside, plant them for my culinary uses and never have to buy any again! Just as a recovering alcoholic tells himself that one more drink won’t hurt, I rushed outside and loaded the bottom of my shopping cart up with a variety of my favorites: rosemary, sage, basil (two types!), and thyme. “I’ll start slow,” I told myself. The biggest thrill of all was the tomato plants nearby. Throwing history to the wind, I picked up a couple of them as well.

The basil lasted exactly 36 hours; the sage started to go after five days. The rosemary looked okay until the lower half started to brown. “What the hell?” I thought. Previous time spent in the desert told me that sage and rosemary bushes were resilient to drought. Regardless, I curiously thought that maybe the heat was getting to the younglings. I then remembered that a constant blanket of fog keeps the central coast of California (where I live) at cool temperatures, rarely venturing out of sixty-degree weather. My next logical deduction was that perhaps the fog was keeping them from getting enough direct sunlight. This was a little beyond my control. I really didn’t feel like getting raised eyebrows from neighbors by setting up growing lamps bought at the local head shop, a.k.a. hydroponics store. I just kept watering them in the mornings and checking their progress in the afternoons.

Progress is an interesting concept because daily attention makes you think that there is none. Only the elapse of time allows you to look back and properly gauge progress. I had gone into maintenance mode, which is a step above giving up and letting the plants die a slow, dry death. My lovely wife first alerted me to their existence. I couldn’t believe my ears; I had to see for myself. I ran out to our deck and sure enough, a miracle was before me. Tiny, dime-sized tomatoes, still green in their infancy, were beginning to form on the vines that I was a week away from declaring dead. Only then did I realize how much they had grown beyond their initial size when I had brought them home from the store. It is at this point that I began to get choked up and teary-eyed up and mentally made the connection between the use of the term “nursery” as a place that raises plants and a place that cares for children. Screw the herbs; they are the red-haired, freckle-faced stepchildren that I never wanted. These tomatoes are my offspring. I will care for them, water them, and love them until the day that I can eat them.

At this point, I am feeling like Michael Phelps must have felt with a neck full of Olympic gold medals. I could hear my neighbor on his deck, which is positioned about eight feet behind mine. It is a little tough to see over there, so I leaned over my railing slightly to proclaim my victory. “Congratulations,” he told me. That’s when I saw it. He has a 32-gallon rubber garbage can, filled with dirt. A barrage of tomato plants are overflowing the top of the can, threatening to overtake his entire deck. He and his girlfriend planted the tomato plants themselves...from seed. “We sprinkled in about 80 seeds. I never thought this many would grow. There must be about thirty plants.” They can bite me. I turned my back and looked at my own tomato plants like a father who has an only son that aspires to be in the debate club instead of the football team. Even in victory, I admit defeat.