To-may-to, to-mah-to

To-may-to, To-mah-to, it’s all the same.  A fruit by any other name would taste just as divine, and yes, I’ve done the research: a tomato is a fruit, more specifically, a berry.  This fruit actually has gone by several names including the “love apple” and the “golden apple” but more about that later.

If you are as fortunate as I am, the gardens near you are bursting with tomatoes this year.  There are so many tomatoes coming out of the garden that we are having to get inventive with how we eat them.  Luckily, we don’t have to look far for an abundance of recipes that feature these beauties.  I thought I’d share some of favourites with my three readers and go into what makes each of them so dang delectable.

Classic Tomato Sandwich:

There is no better way to put your fresh tomatoes front and centre than with the classic Tomato Sandwich.  My preference is to toast the bread and add a little mayonnaise to sweeten the deal.  Two additions to this, should your budget and diet permit, are a crumbly old cheddar or some crispy bacon.

Bocconcini Salad:

This is another meal that allows you to put focus on the beauty that is the tomato.  With just four ingredients (tomato, bocconcini, basil and balsamic reduction), this is an easy throw together side dish with fantastic presentation and a lot of flavour.

Stuffed Tomatoes:  

No matter what you are stuffing your tomatoes with, you are in for a treat.  Using these little red delights as a basket to carry delicious yummies into your mouth is a win on so many levels.  When I make stuffed tomatoes, I tend to stuff with a vegan walnut, mushroom, lentil mix (plus tomato innards) but I’ve also stuffed them with ground pork and have been equally satisfied.  I like to grate some parmesan on top before popping them into the oven to bake because I simply cannot get enough cheese into my body. 

Dehydrated Tomato Slices:

Now we’re getting into the preserving world.  If you have the good problem of having too many tomatoes all at once and want to save them for winter, dehydrating is a great method.  Slice them up and add a little basil and you’ve got yourself some pizza bites to munch on through the cold months.

Another fantastic method for preserving tomatoes for the long haul is to can them.  If done properly, they should live on your shelf happily all winter.  That way they can be brought out at any point to be used for sauces, soups or if you really like tomatoes, you can eat them straight out of the jar.  


With so many delicious ways to enjoy these kitchen favourites, would you believe that they were once thought to be poisonous?  Yes, that is correct.  They were looked upon with suspicion and judgement and avoided at all costs.  There are a couple of reasons for this and both makes sense given their circumstances.  The first is that they are a night shade plant and although the tomato itself is not poisonous, pretty much every other part of the plant is.  Yikes!  

The other reason for their rejection from the kitchen was due to the fact that they were accidentally involved in the deaths of some nobles way back in the day.  Although the fruit itself was perfectly healthy and edible, the earlier varieties were very acidic.  This doesn’t bode well when you’re serving up meals on pewter dish ware.  The acid from the tomatoes would actually lift lead out of the dish ware and as a result, several deaths resulting from lead poisoning took place.  Of course, no one considered that the dish ware might be the culprit, the plant was tossed from kitchens everywhere.  Everywhere except for in Central and South America where Indigenous peoples had been eating tomatoes since about 700 A.D. I like to think that they were looking over at Europe and thinking “You idiots.”

Luckily for all of us, the truth about the fruit eventually came to the surface and tomatoes were welcomed back into kitchens all over the world.  Upon their return, they were given some pretty hilarious nicknames including the “golden apple” and the “Pomme D’Amour” - a name that came about as people used to think they were an aphrodisiac.  I have eaten at least a tomato a day for the last two weeks and can say from experience that they absolutely are not.  Either that or I’m dead inside.   

When it comes to tomatoes, no dish is better than the other - they’re all just different.  Deliciously different.  And there is room for all of them at my table.  What can I say, I’m pretty inclusive when it comes to food.        

    

The plant that follows the light.

There is no denying the aesthetic value that sunflowers bring to a garden.  Known for their height and colossal flowering heads, these beauties are cheerful and eye catching.  But are these plants just a pretty face?  I’m convinced that’s not the case.  These dazzling plants have a long list of benefits that make them a hearty contributor and strong contender for any growing patch.

Firstly, they feed pollinators.  Having a row of sunflowers in your garden is pretty much the equivalent of opening an all-you-can-eat buffet for bees.  And did you know that they’re allopathic?  This means that they are a natural weed suppressor.  Although the downside to this is that they can negatively impact plants that you do want to grow, some thoughtful plant placing will immediately solve this, leaving you with an easy-to-manage veggie patch.

You likely already have a second tab open on your internet browser and are in the process of ordering sunflower seeds for your own garden, and I applaud you for this, but hold on - we’re just getting started.  Sunflowers naturally detox contaminated soil.  They were even used after the Chernobyl disaster to pull cesium and strontium from soil and ponds near the disaster sites.  

Another benefit: Did you know that sunflowers attract aphids?  You might think this is a bad thing but if you cleverly place these giants on the edge of your garden, they pull those little pests away from the veggies.  Seeing as sunflowers also attract birds (some of which, like hummingbirds, eat aphids), you are simultaneously feeding the birds.  

Okay, now that we’ve talked about all of the little friends you’ll be feeding by growing these beauties, let’s talk a bit about the benefits they bring to your own kitchen.

Sunflower seeds are an obvious win when it comes to harvesting this flower.  They are a healthy source of Vitamin E, Vitamin B1 and B6, Iron, Copper, Selenium, Manganese, Zinc and Potassium. Not bad for a teeny tiny seed!  They also help with inflammation and have been linked to lower rates of cardiovascular disease.  Awe, they’re good for your heart - how cute.  The oil from these miracle mammoths, extracted from the black variety of seed, also have similar health benefits as well as being good for hair and skin.  

Now, the eating of sunflower seeds has been around for thousands of years.  Essentially since the start of the flower itself, which is native to North America.  However, despite there being some evidence that early indigenous peoples extracted the seed’s oil (for medicinal purposes or the production of something similar to bread), the history of these flowers as oil producers doesn’t really hit its high until they were pulled from their comfort zone and brought to new territory.  

Sunflowers were initially introduced to Europe by Spaniards around the year 1500, but oil extraction wasn’t high on its list of uses.  Near the turn of the 19th century, though, something flipped and by 1830, the production of sunflower oil was done on an industrial scale.  

This is largely due to Russian influence and the interaction they had with this species of plant.  Hilariously, this boom started as a result of a ban.  The Russian Orthodox church had published a list of substances that were banned during the period of lent.  This list included a number of foods and various oils and fats.  Sunflower oil was omitted from that list and thus began the mass consumption and production of this heart-happy product.  

Demand for this product grew substantially and before long, the countryside had turned yellow with more than 800,000 hectares of sunflower crops between Russia and the Ukraine.  Research programs were developed to take this product to the next level and in 1912 a young man named Vasilii Stepanovich Pustovoit walked through the doors and changed the history and production of sunflowers forever.  

Pustovoit began focusing on isolating desirable traits in sunflowers, like high oil content and high yield.  He bred the plants for these specific characteristics.  It is because of him that we have the modern varieties of sunflowers that you can find growing across North America and Europe today.  In fact he was so essential to the growth and development of the sunflower that there is an award named after him.  Receiving this award is considered the highest honour to an individual working in the sunflower industry.    

It’s humbling to look at a garden and think that each plant could have a story like this.  A history and a secret store of benefits that we don’t see at first glance.  How many plants do we write-off without knowing their whole story?  Would you despise a daffodil if you took the time to learn more about it?  Like with so many things, there is no “better” when it comes to flowers, only different.  When I stand next to the sunflowers in my garden, I look up in awe.  Not only because they physically tower over me, but because it amazes me that this beautiful sun-seeker has so much going for it and so much history that can so easily be overlooked.  There is no question that these plants are so much more than just a pretty face.

Lessons in Gardening

Lessons in Gardening - Chapter 01

In the short time I’ve spent here on earth so far, I’ve dabbled a lot in finding spaces or environments that help me to dig into deep reflection and find answers to big probing questions.  Some of these places have been costly - like the couch of a professional therapist, others have been unique or quirky - like a sensory deprivation tank.  All of these options worked well… to some extent, and have their place.  But there is one space that really took me to a deeper place and allowed me to dig around and weed out the unnecessary.  Yes, I’m talking about the garden.

I’ve always been pulled towards gardening but have never quite had the right space to put my roots down (okay, I promise, that’s the last garden pun).  Growing up in the far north meant that there was a short growing season that didn’t necessarily nurture the casual gardener.  It’s not impossible, and there are incredible gardeners up north, but it takes a dedication and commitment that I didn’t carry in my youth towards, well, pretty much anything.

In my early twenties, the bug bit me a little harder and I spent one spring collecting every free bedside table and aquarium I could get my hands on in order to convert them into growing spaces for my relatively small balcony.  My two roommates with whom I shared this balcony weren’t necessarily impressed, though they cheered me on for the summer.  It was a fun experience but after a rainy winter those press-board pieces of furniture were pretty much mulch and it was time to toss them.


This past spring, I’ve been lucky enough to find myself in a space that has a wonderfully large garden along with a seasoned gardener to teach me some tricks.  I’ve watched and assisted as he’s grown vegetables from seed - starting them inside under the safety of warm glowing lights before hardening them off to withstand the winds and rain of the environment they’d end up growing in.

Once planted in solid ground, the work of the gardener turns into one of watching and weeding: watching for growth and celebrating, watching for disease and medicating, and weeding, weeding, weeding.  For most, this last task is a back-breaking slog that results in them cursing at the sky and at their past selves for having grown such a large garden in the first place.  I am not one of those people.

Weeding brings me immense joy.  More often than not, I need to pull myself out of the garden in order to get on with my day.  On more than one occasion, I have happily spent upwards of 4 hours sitting between the rows of vegetables meticulously pulling out every hint of a weed.  “Why?”  You might be asking.  “Are you insane?”  Well, maybe.  But there is a lot to take out of this task… and I’m not just talking about the weeds themselves (I know, I promised!  No more puns.  Deepest apologies).  Here’s my take on why weeding is one of the best forms of therapy:

1 - If you weed like I do, it requires that you move slow and really take the time to examine each plant and determine whether it is either helpful or harmful.  By harmful, I don’t mean poisonous or invasive, but harmful in that it’s taking nutrients away from what you planted, what you want to sow.  Essentially, it’s detracting from your goal.

2- It gives you the opportunity to understand where your food comes from.  This understanding will likely make you feel more grateful for every meal you put into your body and grateful to the absolutely awesome planet that grows it.

3 - It gives you an opportunity to listen to your environment.  Ever feel like your brain is a super highway of random thoughts driving at top speed as though they’re late to work?  Or better yet, like a radio station that’s constantly switching between stations?  No?  Just me?  Well, even if you don’t have that experience, how often do you take the time to stop and listen to the world around you.  If you’re sitting in a garden, chances are there are some birds near by singing a little song and hoping that you’ll pull up a worm that they can nab for lunch.  Even the sound of the dirt brushing and the leaves rustling can provide a sort of symphony.  It’s nice.

4- When you finish, you can see the job you’ve done.  You can physically see the before and after and boy, oh boy - that’s satisfying.

5 - Food, glorious food - Have you ever had the opportunity to eat fresh butter crunch lettuce from the garden?  If not, I suggest you seek out that experience and savour every bite.  Food taste different from the garden.  It’s fresh, the nutrients are still packed in, not yet faded from a truck ride to the nearest grocery store.  And knowing you had a part in bringing that meal to the table, now that’s pretty delicious too.

Not every space lends to growing and I recognize that I’m lucky to be able to spend a year in one that does.  But if you have the ability to grow something, even just a single tomato plant or a little tray of herbs in your kitchen window, I’d suggest you give it a try.  It’s one of the cheapest forms of therapy you’ll ever invest in and the returns are simply lip-smacking.