blue artichoke

I went to the farmer's market yesterday, looking for some ripe, juicy peaches and found a big box (25#!) of tomatoes dirt cheap. I tried out several recipes for fresh tomato sauce to freeze for the winter, in preparation for the Great Tomato Sauce Snackdown. I made a thyme tomato sauce and a basil tomato sauce, and ran out of onions. I'll get more tomorrow and make a few more batches this week. 25 pounds is a lot of tomatoes, so in addition to the various sauce recipes, this week is Tomato Week!

And, in honor of Tomato Week, here are a few fun facts about tomatoes:

*Botanically, tomatoes are fruits, more specifically, berries. Legally, though, tomatoes are vegetables. Yup, that's right. Our illustrious Supreme Court got bored interpreting the Constitution and decided to answer the old question of how to classify tomatoes. In 1893, they decided that a tomato is legally classified as a vegetable for purposes of applying shipping tariffs.

*The early Spanish thought tomatoes were poisonous; early French thought them aphrodisiacs and called them "love apples."

*Peak season for tomatoes is June through September.

*There are at least 10,000 varieties of tomatoes.

*The South Arkansas vine ripe pink tomato is Arkansas' official state vegetable.

*Tomato juice is the official state beverage of Ohio.

*Lycopene, a carotenoid that contirbutes a red pigment to foods, is a powerful antioxidant that combats all types of cancer, raises SPF of skin and indirectly lowers risk for age-related macular degeneration. Lycopene is rare in foods, but is rich in tomatoes and red watermelon.

Dinner tonight: