I will eat real vine-ripened tomatoes, from the farmers market, or from my backyard, during the season, until I have the worst acid stomach, and acid burned tongue, from all my fresh tomato over-indulgence. Now, ask me to eat the out-of-season, grocery-store variety, well you can forget about it. When I eat a tomato, I want to taste summer, not mealy, tasteless mush.

Enough of my rant. I have found the solution for us tomato loving purists...Tomato Mountain Organics. Growing, and harvesting the best, and ripest tomatoes (and other ingredients) and transforming them into what I consider jars of summer. Tomato based salsas, pasta sauce, soup, preserves, juice and wow, the best Bloody Mary mix, ever. Tomato Mountain Farm, located about a 2 1/2 drive north into Wisconsin, is not only the farm that organically grows all of the ingredients, and picks them at the peak of freshness, but they also process all of their jarred products, in their own processing kitchen...hence, why all of their products taste like jars of sunshine.

And where can you find these jars of summer? Not to worry, you don't have to wait until the next farmer's market day (though Tomato Mountain can be found at a number of them). Head on over to the Chicago Downtown Farmstand, or a number of other retailers listed on the Tomato Mountain website, or place an online order directly with Tomato Mountain. I would be willing to bet that any of their products will hold you over until tomato season...

mo

moira@efete.net