It should be a National Holiday, a day of celebration knowing that after 6 months of eating tasteless Roma and Big Boy tomatoes from the grocery store, the first tomato from your garden has turned red-ripe enough to pick. It’s the First ‘Mater Day, and for the Brewer’s it was celebrated on Tuesday of this week. Nancy’s above-ground garden came through with a beautiful tomato. It was perfect, bright red, ideally shaped and not a hint of a blemish. It was unusually firm, likely because of the lack of rain. Her garden, with warmer soil, always produces before mine and she has three or four more ‘maters ready to be picked soon. I’m hoping my 4 vines will pick up the slack in few weeks and we will be on our way to 4 or 5 full months of continuous, fresh – not artificial – tomatoes
I celebrate First ‘Mater Day in typical fashion by slicing the tomato, topping it with two strips of fried bacon and secure it between two pieces of white bread slathered in Duke’s Mayonnaise.
In my book First ‘Mater Day is right up there with Christmas.
