All About Tomatoes

 

August is tomato season in Suisun Valley and let me tell you- It is Everything Tomato at IL Fiorello! We have a lot here at the Farm. We’ve had to chase the mockingbirds away from them! Our chickens love the little red and yellow cherry tomatoes. They chase each other like little kids to catch the sweet ones. Hilarious to watch.

Tomatoes from the garden, tomato cooking class, dried tomatoes in the kitchen to pair with oils, Tomato Festival Cooking Contest and the Fairfield Tomato Festival! Did I mention Everything Tomato?

Our suggestion? Pair fresh tomatoes with our Mission Olive Oil or Green Valley Blend-beyond wonderful! The fresh tomatoes are perfect, the oil divine, the combination even better.

At the 26th annual Tomato Festival VIP tent, IL Fiorello will serve house made Polenta and organic Sun Dried Tomatoes with our Green Valley Blend organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil, which won a Silver medal at the State Fair. It will be an honor to present this pairing.

Last Saturday, we hosted our Everything Tomato Cooking Class. Executive Chef Gloria Ciccarone-Nehls and Sous Chef Genevieve Upp presented an outstanding, delicious, marvelous, fabulous menu. Larry Balestra, from Larry’s Produce, was kind enough to provide us with some heirloom tomatoes to round out our supply of large size tomatoes for “The Stack”.

 

Photo of “The Stack” courtesy of Michael Morris, Vacaville Reporter Sunday, August 13, 2017

Our guests were greeted with Tomato and Goat Cheese Tarts, they made the stacks of mozzarella, zucchini, eggplant, and tomatoes. It was finished with our oils and balsamic vinegar reduction. We had Tomato Tini’s, Tomato Water with Signature Balsamic Vinegar Reduction. We finished with Tomato-Basil Sorbet, a sweet and savory concoction from Chef Gloria and a delicious finale to the cooking class.

That same day, we also had 30 food and wine writers from San Francisco taste our oils and tomatoes and there was a resounding shout of joy at the pairing! They were a wonderful group to speak to and lots of good questions and discussions.

Last month I presented our oil with food pairings at UC Davis Olive Oil Sensory Class. One of our presentations that our Chef Gloria and I developed were tomatoes and olive oil. We presented both store bought tomatoes and our garden tomatoes with a beautiful oil. It is no wonder consumers are confused because the store bought (most likely green house) tomatoes tasted bad, and the garden tomatoes tasted brilliant with the oil! Food pairing is about balance and knowing your products.

This Saturday, August 19,  we will host the Cooking Competition for the Fairfield Tomato Festival in our Kitchen in the Groves. Judges will be judging from 10-12 am. Finalists are announced and the overall winners will be presented on Sunday, August 20th at the Tomato Festival. We will also serve tastes of garden tomatoes with Mission oil and Green Valley oil in our Kitchen in the Grove as a comparative tasting experience from Friday August 18th-Sunday, August 20th.

So stop by anytime from 1 to 5 to experiment with tastes.  Come and enjoy!

 

 

Ciao

Ann