I’ve been disappointed by my tomato harvest this year. Initially I wanted to react as the two boarders do: sit down in the middle of the floor and cry or scream until someone makes me go to my room for awhile. The boss got tired of this behavior, so I have finally had to make do.
The plants have gotten a blight — probably septoria, but maybe a touch of early blight. It’s not as bad as the late blight because most of the fruits don’t get hit badly. Nevetheless, the plants are done so a lot of the fruit has had to riped in bins in the mud room.
You might have noticed that there’s been a bit of precipitation in the last few weeks. The humidity makes for ideal fungus conditions, so I’ve lost a lot of the prematurely harvested tomatoes to rot.
The ones that are left are delicious, so tonight to celebrate Friday I broke out the old “Universal Food Chopper.” I found this in the back room of my grandparents’ garage some years ago. It ways a great deal so I’m glad I don’t have to move too much.
The copy on the little directions say that it “CHOPS All Kinds of RAW OR COOKED MEATS Better than any other Machine.” It does give me some satisfaction that even people back when they taught the basics at school, still couldn’t figure out when to capitalized.
Luckily, “It also Chops all Kinds of VEGETABLES AND FRUIT.” Since tomatoes are either vegetables or fruits, depending on who you talk to, I know I’m covered. (they’re fruits in case you’re wondering).
This work horse was invented back before electronics. In those days mailmen (and they were all men) just threw things across the country little by little. Even this entirely solid piece of iron needed to come with a warning:
That’s right “very fragile.” I can’t make out the post mark date, but it only cost ninety-five cents to send.
It does a hell of a job grinding tomatoes though. I sauteed some onions, garlic, pepper and eggplant — all still in their death throes — and added them to the tomatoes. After dinner I put the leftovers in quart jars and will now freeze them for winter. There’s something to look forward to.
I find that fragile angel a little creepy.
