Round, firm and juicy

Reluctant as I am to insult any Spaniards who may be around, I have to say that tomatoes from Spain just aren't as good as tomatoes from Mississippi. Don't get me wrong. Spanish tomatoes are pretty good. They're tasty and juicy but they lack that extra depth of flavor that I'm used to in tomatoes from the Southland. Still I make myself as happy as I can with them and especially appreciate their availability until late September.

And as reluctant as I am to insult any Dutch who may be lurking, you folks grow the worst tomatoes on the planet. I like Holland. It's a fun place to visit - interesting and pretty and clean. And I like the Dutch people. Every Dutch person I've ever come across, with the exception of one asshole flight attendant, was exceedingly nice and friendly. I am half in love with Roy Makaay and I think Ruud van Nistelrooy is hot. But God help you people, whatever gave you folks the idea that those hard, red, mealy, flavorless spheres you grow are tomatoes? While in Amsterdam the last time I ate a tomato salad. It literally had no flavor. In fact it sucked the flavor out of the dressing. I've never eaten anything to flavor neutral in my life. I was marveling at how awfully nothing it was until I reminded myself that I was in Holland and I must have been out of my mind to eat a tomato in Holland.

I say all this because I am seriously jonesing for a Mississippi tomato sandwich. I want a chilled tomato grown in the warm soil of northeast Mississippi that has had the benefit of Miracle Grow, hot summer sunshine and late afternoon thundershowers. I want to slice it and appreciate its firm flesh and the succulant juice. I want to smear a soft slice of bread with Hellmann's mayonnaise, layer the slices that cunningly fit the dimensions of the bread and sprinkle each slice with a shake of salt and pepper before adding the next and then topping it with another Hellmann's crowned slice of bread. And then I want to stand at the sink to eat it because everyone knows that a perfect tomato sandwich really should be eaten while standing over the kitchen sink. That juice, turned to a milky pink by the Hellmann's, is simply going to run all over and a really fabulous tomato sandwich made with a really fabulous tomato will require you to wash your arms afterwards. Wash down with the cold beverage of your choice.

Bless you Europeans, you just don't know what you're missing.