Like most people who grow them, I blow hot and cold on cherry tomatoes. They are prolific. They climb like weeds; they produce fruit all summer long. And in the fall, their small shape, about 1 to 2 inches in diameter, allows them to ripen even in autumn's shortened sunlight. When the larger tomato plants are kaput, the cherries are still churning. Moreover, they don't require acres of land. You can grow cherry tomatoes in pots on a patio.
So cherry tomatoes seem like a good starting point for The Locavore, a new monthly column about locally produced foods.
A clever use of green cherry tomatoes, one passed along to me by Boog Powell, the former Orioles All Star first baseman turned pit-beef baron, is to pickle them and put them in a martini, replacing the olive. After you taste this cherry tomato, you will never, Powell promised, go back to olives.
Here is my rundown on the tiny tomatoes:
Harvesting
* Sun Gold, a hybrid plant that produces golden fruit, is the sweetest cherry tomato I have tasted this year. I eat them like candy.
* My Black Cherry, a tomato that looks like a dark cherry, has a much milder flavor than a Sun Gold. The Yellow Pear cherry tomato has so little acid I find it boring.
* Ripe cherry tomatoes will play hide and seek with you, often falling to the garden floor. If you "harvest" cherry tomatoes in the grocery store or at a farmer's market, you miss most of this frustration. Look for tomatoes that have taut skin.
* Any plot of ground that was host to cherry tomatoes one season is likely to have them appear the next year because the offspring of the disappearing tomatoes return as volunteer plants.
Storing
* Keep cherry tomatoes out of sunlight and out of the refrigerator.
Cooking
* Slice cherry tomatoes into pieces about the size of a quarter. Put them on a baking sheet and dab them with a solution of olive oil and sea salt. Cook for 2 to 3 hours in a 225-degree oven. Toss in a salad or onto a pizza, or eat as a snack.
* Make Boog Powell's pickled cherry tomatoes: Fill a sterile, 1-quart Mason jar with stemmed green cherry tomatoes that have been pierced with a skewer. In a pot, put 1 1/2 cups white vinegar, 1 cup water, 3 tablespoons salt, 1 teaspoon celery seed and 1 teaspoon dill seed, and bring to just short of a boil. Pour the heated mixture onto the tomatoes, close the jar lid, let it sit a few minutes, then invert the jar. Let it sit upside down for a few more minutes, then right the jar. Let the sealed jar sit for two weeks, then pop it open and drop one of the pickled green tomatoes into your martini.
