It’s May in Southern California. The mornings are foggy, the jacarandas are in bloom, the days are warm, though the nights are cool, and the afternoons are stretching further into the sun dappled evenings.
Aesthetically, it’s a beautiful time of year, but culinarily, it’s a bit of a pickle, especially if you’re in the mood for salad. The butternut squash and cabbage salads of winter no longer satisfy, there’s only so much asparagus you can eat, and lettuce gets a little boring. But summer vegetables – the zucchini, the corn and most of all, the tomatoes, are still a long way off. Tomato salads have been calling my name, but I can’t get anything but a tasteless tomato, and won’t be able to get anything more for a couple of months yet.
The solution is the slow roasted tomato. By cooking a standard supermarket plum tomato in the oven at a low heat, the sugars caramelize, the juices concentrate, and what you get is worthy of my favorite summer salad – panzanella (though they’re also terrific in sandwiches).
