Salade de tomates
Go into the vegetable garden at dusk. Circle the vines slowly, gauging the redness of the fruit as the pungent of ripe days fills your head. Once you have spotted five perfectly crimson tomatoes, approach them one by one with reverence.
Next, enjoy the feel of your hand wrapping gently around their smoothness, their skin still hot with sun. Feel their lack of resistance as you pluck them from the vine, plump, juicy and willing. Yes, yes, take me; I’m yours… Go dizzy with the sheer wonder of compliant nature.
Place each tomato in the basket. Count your blessings. Walk over to the herb garden. Step on a thistle or two just for balance. Cut some chives, pluck some basil – green and purple – and climb the stone stairs back into the house. Extract what remains of the thistles from your feet. Wash your hands.
In the kitchen with departing sunlight slanting through the window, take a well-sharpened knife and make fat slices of the ripe tomato flesh. Feel it drizzle over your fingers. Rinse the cutting board clean of seeds and juice. Drain and make slices of soft water-soaked mozzarella. Wipe up what dribbled onto the floor; comfort the dog for coming too late. Wash your hands. Lay the slices of tomato and mozzarella alternately in a spiral upon a white dish.
Cut the chives and basil over top them. Ground salt and pepper. A splash of balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Swirl the dish so no one’s left out. Let sit time enough for a glass of wine, a summary of the day’s events and an instalment of the ongoing debate on the merits of Martin Amis.
Bring the salad out to the candle-lit terrace and grin stupidly as you serve it to the person you love. Enjoy with the thought of summer soon gone, knowing you won’t have this taste in your mouth again until this time next year.
Count your blessings.
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