Nuclear Power PLANT

I have been given a gift. This particular gift has put me to shame and caused significant humiliation, but it is a gift none-the-less. Christine, a summer intern at work, has a dad who gardens - Charlie. Charlie started growing things 3 or 4 years ago in his big backyard on Long Island and does both in ground and container gardening. The first (and only) time I met him I lobbed a ton of questions his way. Poor guy didn’t know what he got himself into.

I’ve been ferrying gardening questions to him all summer through Christine and would expect her to report back with the answers (wasn’t that part of an intern’s job description??). Halfway through summer, before we met but after a couple of questions and answers were exchanged, Charlie sent a gift my way via Christine: a zucchini. It was a beautiful thing and engendered no jealousy because I’m not growing zucchini. It was just a random act of kindness that I could enjoy. I thought I needed to share so I made zucchini bread with it and brought it into the office. 

At the end of summer, to celebrate Christine’s last day of work and her 21^st birthday, a group of us, including Christine’s parents, celebrated at a local dive bar. Christine met us at the office, bearing another gift from Charlie, whom I would meet in a few hours. It was a tomato. A beautiful, ripe red tomato. When I tell you it was huge, I mean it was HUGE. It must have weighed close to a pound. See? 

Almost the size of my entire hand!

Larger than my laptop's mouse pad!

Christine thinks that there is something wrong with her dad's garden - some sort of nuclear power source that makes her dad's vegetables of seriously substantial size. It's a nuclear power plant!! (Hehe, get it??) Christine would often show me photos of the products of her dad's garden, and I have to say - something unnatural may have been at work here. Do people really grow things THAT large?? He needs to enter a state fair.

Whatever the cause of the super-size veggies, I was showing everyone. 

"Look, look! Look at what Charlie grew!!"

 The typical answer was "Oh my god, that's huge!" 

A few minutes later followed by "Okay, Lindsay, we get it. It's a big tomato. Shut up." 

I was so proud of a fellow gardener and the potential of any home garden. It took me a few hours to really start thinking about his tomato as compared to mine. But eventually I got there. I was shamed and humiliated by my measly success with 1 small (but delicious) cherry tomato. When I brought the tomato home, Chris looked at it and immediately said, "Wow. What are YOU doing wrong?" Seriously!

Nevertheless, I intended to fully enjoy this gift. What do you do with such a big fruit? Make it the star! The easiest was to have a slice of tomato with some of my own home-grown basil, plus olive oil, salt and pepper. I would have added mozzarella, but I didn't have any, and it didn't really need it anyway. Deeee-lish! 

Nuclear tomato + home grown basil = absolute goodness.

So although I am humbled by this gift, what Charlie has done is show me the possibilities. He has shown me the potential if I keep at it and continue gardening and learning. Faith in my own abilities to grow something organic, natural and nutritious and I could one day have something like The-Tomato-That-Charlie-Grew. 

Okay. I'll keep at it. Thanks Christine and Charlie for the inspiration!