Tomatoes on toast, it's a beautiful thing

When I was a kid, my father always grew tomatos in the backyard. One of the things I most looked forward to during the "harvest" was tomatoes on toast. Sounds mundane but it really is a beautiful thing. Well this past weekend, we went to visit our friends P&D at their place near Cambridge. D cultivates the most fantastic heirloom tomatoes and the night we stayed over we took great pleasure in the turkey-platter sized tomato salad with chevre and tomatoes in green, yellow, orange, red, and cherry black. Both a feast for the eyes and a feast for the tummy.

They were kind enough to share their bounty and we came home with about a nice box of their tomatoes and all I could think about all the way home was having tomatoes on toast the next morning for breakfast. Which I did.

It's so simple but so fantastic. Get yourself a sharp knife and then sharpen it. You don't want anything getting in the way of the perfectly thin slices. Once you're sure the knife is good and sharp, slice your tomato into the thinnest slices you can. Toast some nice bread up and then dribble some good extra virgin olive oil on there. Add a thin layer of tomato, a sprinkle of salt and pepper and a bit of olive oil and repeat until you have a few layers on there. Then just enjoy. It may be a bit messy but it's worth it. Importantly: slices need to be paper thin and go easy on the olive oil, you want to taste it but not drown everything in it.