Pretty pictures in magazines? We like them, we do, but whenever August rolls around, the traditional high season for tomatoes, and we see glossy pictorials of laughing people sitting on rose-strewn verandas as they eat sliced heirlooms covered in rare salt, well. We do cock an eyebrow and vow to treat tomatoes better.
Tomatoes? We're sorry.
Because for most of us tomato-eating is all too often this: slice a tomato, any tomato, and stick it atop a hamburger or throw it on some greens. We want to be fancy with this particular juicy fruit, but the tomato's humble nature, ubiquity, and ease-of-slicing too often precludes us enjoying it in its full August glory.
Loteria Grill Hollywood and a bevy of top local chefs can help us with this. They're throwing the Five Tomato Dinner on Thursday, Aug. 8, a meal that will include a different type of tomato, and tomato presentation, in each course. Tomatomania!, that traveling springtime show of heirloom wonder, is a host, and the price? It's $55. Jimmy Shaw of Loteria, Evan Kleinman, and other toque-wearing luminaries will be at the cutting boards.
But the Tinseltown restaurant is also throwing a few other tomato-y events, including a tasting and brunch, in conjunction with Tomatomania. The seedy sweetness starts on Saturday, Aug. 3, but note that tomato-nice doings are happening at all the Loteria locations.
So August? We're grateful. Just when we've gotten too cavalier with our tomato consumption, you remind us that the red and yellow and orange and every color orbs absolutely burst with flavor and subtlety. A tomato tasting or a fancy five-tomato dinner will remind us that we don't need a veranda or expensive salts to enjoy one of summer's tastiest gifts.
Take us back, tomatoes? Please?
