Tomato-y Goodness

My Daddy told stories with the best of Texans! He was born in 1897! No, that is not a typo... he was 55 when I was born.

When Baby-Jake was just toddling about some kind neighbor brought by a bushel basket of tomatoes and left them on the porch. Back then, in the rural pan-handle of Texas, folks believed raw tomatoes would poison you. (I never could work that one out!) Baby-Jake was a sickly little guy but he managed to get over to that bushel basket of ripe tomatoes and ATE THEM (dun! dun! dun!) Almost immediately he stopped being so sickly. He always credited his improvement in health to those tomatoes.

MY DADDY, BABY-JAKE AND HIS SISTER FRANK

CIRCA 1898

Thankfully, we know that tomatoes, particularly garden grown, are marvelous! And my little grandchildren totally agree with their great-Grampy!

Lasterday was our early Thanksgiving (I'd rather have ALL of our [local] children on any day than only part of them or stressed-out kids on THE day!) After dinner Fiona came up from the dungeon with a tomato and it reminded me that I have several boxes of ripening tomatoes ferreted away weeks ago when I put the garden to bed for the winter.

I had Kaia and Elise bring them up to the dining room table in hopes that I might be able to *pedal* some of them to the family. (It always amazes me at how hard it is to give away garden produce this time of year. We are all *so done with that* and just want them gone!)

Camille and I were sitting at the table visiting. I was holding my sleeping baby-boy, but when he woke up he wanted his Mama!! She was trying to send an email to a co-worker and not paying attention to Mr Chunka-Monka- who I was watching as he and his big sister, Miss Bitty, were sampling Grammie's tomatoes (THEY are not *so done with that*!)

That's one of the wonderful things about being the Grammie... most things amuse me rather than aggravate me! Chunka, with only his two little teeth, was making a good job of demolishing eating tomatoes! 

(Those CHEEKS! I DIE!)

When Camille noticed she wanted me to get photos of his tomato-y goodness... all down the front of him...

And all down the front of Mama! (She texted me later and told me he needed a bath because he smelled like tomatoes! Imagine that?)

He thoroughly enjoyed his Thanksgiving feast of first yams and then tomatoes for dessert! (Grammie had some of Suzi's wonderful salad for dessert!)

As Camille and I talked about how precious he was with his tomato-eating we remembered that last year, almost to the day, Miss Bitty did the same thing at Grammie's house.

MISS BITTY, 19 NOVEMBER 2014

She has her tomato in one hand and her [banned and illegal] Kinder toy in the other. (Stuart and Stephanie smuggled brought it back to me last fall when they returned from Europe.)

I can hardly believe that the little girl who speaks paragraphs to us today was this tiny girl just one year ago.

I was quite certain I'd blogged about this day, when Miss Bitty was alternately gnawing on the tomato AND the fingernail file! But I could find no trace of it. I even had to dig... dig DEEP, to find these photos. That's what I get for taking photos with my iPad instead of my iPhone. Fortunately I hadn't deleted them!