A recipe for bruschetta with garlic

The hope was that the six tomatoes ripening on the plant on the terrace would be ready for this column. Check out the homemade garlic bruschetta topping here.

What we get, though, is an extra day or two of the tomato watch that has been going on every morning since the day – just after Easter – that my mother gave my son some seeds. Then she filled a grocery basket with trash bags, stuffed the seeds in it, and placed it against the sunniest wall, under the air-conditioning unit that was constantly dripping from her upstairs neighbors. I'm not sure what I enjoyed more: watching little sprouts grow into plants and father six, or a determined six-year-old applauding them with the same tight intent as he applauds AS Roma.

Tomato watching, also smelling tomato. What is it that makes tomato leaves and vines smell so beautiful? It's the most vegetal, sappy, happy scent, even though it's measured against three geranium plants, four climbing ringroses, a gangly supermarket rosemary (forever traumatized by the move from plastic to real pot), a tub of unidentified but possibly edibles, a dying oleander, rampant caper and the toe-biting turtle, which inhabit our sunny, dripping terrace.

As we wait for our bountiful harvest, a Testaccio de Filippo market stall is now a sea of ​​red, pink and green. The potato chips have the best taste, a plum variety with cucumber flesh skin streaked with pinkish-red. Filippo simply calls them casaecce – home grown. My friend, a cook and gardener Carla Tomasi, calls these special people insalatari – salad tomatoes. I remember the first time I gave myself bruschetta with tomatoes that were greener than red, crunchier than meat.

It all seemed wrong: surely the point of the vain people in this situation was that they repented and snapped, indulged in bruschetta? There is an unexpected lesson that when the tomatoes are good, tasty and well-cooked with olive oil, then the flesh is green with its acidic crunch, it is one of the best garlic foods and oil rub is a pleasure. The same occur with an insalata caprese, in which slice of green tomato pulp and the acid is the ideal for a milky mozzarella. Bright, red and ripe, or crunchy and green, you decide on the best tomatoes for your bruschetta or your caprese... just don't forget the basil.

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