Rainy Day Salad

Then, having bought it, he went back to New York, leaving me to tackle the double-headed monster on my own, which I did with one of my favorite knives

The knife (so elegant), made in Japan by Kyocera, has a ceramic blade with microscopic serrations that slice through tomato skin and soft tomato pulp effortlessly and neatly – the skin never tears and the fruit never goes ragged. 

Once I had separated the twins, I tasted the tomato to see if it was worth continuing.  The answer: yes!  In fact, the tomato was so good that I dashed out into the pouring rain to get some basil from the garden. 

With a tomato this good, less is just enough, so all I did was cut it into chunks, sprinkle it with fleur de sel and splash it with great olive oil.  Then I added some sliced plums, an idea lifted from a salad Dan Barber, the remarkable chef, had made at the remarkable Blue Hill at Stone Barns.

With a hunk of bread and good butter, it was the perfect lunch, made perfecter by the fact that I was alone so, when I finished the salad, I could drink the luscious tomato “soup” that had accumulated in the bottom of the bowl.  It certainly brightened a gray, rainy day.