>Two tomato salads and some autumn food festivals

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Usually our tomato plants continue producing until November and in past years we’ve eaten tomatoes picked green and then ripened in the house as late as December.  This year will be different and production has already slowed down almost to nothing.  The Ananas plants seem to be having a late renaissance, though, and we’ve also picked some of the Long Andean variety which is more suitable for making purée, but we’ve used them in salads too.

Left: Long Andean tomatoes sliced with garlic, chopped green pepper and anchovies and basil leaves. 

Right: Ananas tomatoes with basil, garlic and sliced mozzarella cheese.

And here’s a link from the Observer website to some amazing-sounding food festivals in Italy, France, Norway, Croatia, Crete, Sardinia and Mallorca.  If I lived nearer I’d be especially tempted by the Fête des Legumes Oubliés (Festival of Forgotten Vegetables), but it’s in Normandy – a very long way from here – and the olive festival in Mallorca, and…. well, all of them really!

 

  The pumpkin festival near Lucca in Italy reminded me to ask our neighbour whether we should be protecting ours from damp by keeping them off the ground, but he said there’s no need as they have such thick skins.  They should be left while the stems are still green and then can be brought inside.  Our plants seem to be rejuvenating themselves and we have several new small pumpkins growing to join the five large ones already there.  I don’t know whether there will be time for the small ones to grow before the weather gets colder.  The big ones are not as big as I’ve seen them in western France, where there’s a lot more rain, but they’re not doing badly.