The First Tomato Sandwich

I had my first tomato sandwich of the year for dinner the other night.

Jennifer had bought them at the local farmer's market. She picked out three large nice ones. 

It is early for tomatoes. The best ones are yet to come. Same with cantaloupe. I love a lush, juicy cantaloupe. But the first really excellent tomato is a signpost of the season every year.

I put three slices between two pieces of wheat bread and a generous helping of avocado mayonnaise. You can slather it on there and tell yourself you are doing something healthy. I have no idea whether this is true. I did not stop long enough to investigate.

The sandwich was good enough that I had another one the next night.

A tomato sandwich is one of those things that does not need much improvement. In fact, you can probably make it worse by getting too clever. Get so far from the tomato that it becomes background and that is not the point of this at all.  Jennifer likes her tomatoes salty. 

Texture is at least half of it. The bread has to be soft enough to give way. The tomato has to be wet and firm enough to hold together for two or three bites before everything begins to collapse. The mayonnaise has to be excessive enough to make the whole thing vaguely embarrassing. A simple decadence. 

There are foods that are mainly about taste. A good steak. A peach. Fresh corn. Then there are foods that are about the whole physical experience of eating them. A tomato sandwich belongs in that second group. The wetness of the tomato. The softness of the bread. The slickness of the mayo. The faint crunch of pepper. You do not really eat one of these politely. It can be surprisingly sensual.

Things return. This is the way of things. The first good tomatoes. Figs appearing after you have almost forgotten to look for them. The longest hot days with afternoon thunderstorms. The first time the katydids get going, which happens to be right now as a matter of fact. My woods are magically alive with rhythmic insect sounds.

These small repetitions accumulate in us. We become partly made of them. The food we wait for. The songs that return at certain times of year. The familiar routines we barely notice until something interrupts them. The little domestic ceremonies that would look completely unimportant from the outside.

Then, every now and then, one catches your attention.

You are sitting there with tomato juice beginning to soak into the bread, mayonnaise on your fingers, and you realize summer has sent an advance scout.

Ummmmmm.