Thought for the Day--April 24, 2011: Ode to Tomatoes (Pablo Neruda, 1904-1973)
The lovely tomato is the mascot of this site (it was a close call between the apple and the tomato, but the tomato ultimately won out, LOL), so I thought you might enjoy Pablo Neruda's poem about tomatoes: The street filled with tomatoes midday, summer, light is halved like a tomato, its juice runs through the streets. In December, unabated, the tomato invades the kitchen, it enters at lunchtime, takes its ease on countertops, among glasses, butter dishes, blue saltcellars. It sheds its own light, benign majesty. Unfortunately, we must murder it: the knife sinks into living flesh, red viscera, a cool sun, profound, inexhaustible, populates the salads of Chile, happily, it is wed to the clear onion, and to celebrate the union we pour oil, essential child of the olive, onto its halved hemispheres, pepper adds its fragrance, salt, its magnetism; it is the wedding of the day, parsley hoists its flag, potatoes bubble vigorously, the aroma of the roast knocks at the door, it's time!