We recently went to dinner at a nicer restaurant with the in-laws. It was August. Prime tomato season. When the server told us that the special was an heirloom tomato salad, our eyes popped and salivary glands turned on. That sounded heavenly to us. Fresh tomatoes in season are divine. This being a nice restaurant probably had top-notch, fancy-pants tomatoes. Given that we’d had a big lunch and already grazed on a few appetizers, we expected it to be the perfect, reasonable entrée. When it arrived, though, it was mostly grape tomatoes, cut in half with like two slices of regular-sized tomatoes and some feta. The plate was miniature. It was not an entrée. It was hardly another appetizer.

We left hungry. Hangery, actually. Very hangery. “Who promises an heirloom tomato salad and brings out a handful of grape tomatoes?” we vented to our wife. “Inconceivable!” It took a while for us to recover emotionally. Make no mistake, this was a big swing and miss from the restaurant. But, our fixation on the size and variety of tomatoes was misplaced.