Food writer Lindsey Nair

• lindsey.nair@roanoke.com | (540) 981-3343

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In the month of the tomato,

they're coming out our noses.

The barn is colored rotten red;

they're squishing 'tween our toeses!

You know we've made spaghetti sauce

and gallons of salsa, too.

If sandwiches were poisonous,

well, we'd be stiff and blue.

We crept out to the neighbor's house

and left some on their porch.

But they sneakily returned them

(the very next day, of course!)

There's nothing left to do, my friend,

but crack a tomato book

and look, and look, and look ...

for something new to cook!

I got inspired to write that Seussical ditty in honor of August, which I've come to think of as the month of the tomato.

August, it seems, is when gardeners begin to wonder what they were thinking when they put in 24 tomato plants for a family of four. Why, God? Why did we think we needed red ones and yellow ones and cherry ones and Roma ones and stripey ones?

When I was a kid, it was always during this dog-day month when we would find ourselves up to our elbows in the sink, slipping the skins from blanched tomatoes.

A big pot boiling on the stove turned our non-air-conditioned kitchen into a veritable hell. Sometimes, our sanity would creep far enough over the edge that we'd stand in the garden and hurl the damn things at the side of the barn in sheer frustration.

But it's such a shame to waste a good tomato, especially when you envision those hard, waxy tomatoes that winter will bring -- not to mention all of the folks who can't afford fresh fruit and vegetables.

If you find yourself up to your ears in the ruby summer fruits, I'd like to offer a couple ideas: either experiment with a new and unusual tomato dish or donate your excess tomatoes to a food pantry.

Ample Harvest

Ample Harvest is a new Web site created by Gary Oppenheimer of West Milford, N.J. It allows gardeners with excess produce to punch in their ZIP code and locate a nearby food pantry that accepts donations of fresh fruits and vegetables.

Not all Roanoke and New River Valley food pantries have signed on to Ample Harvest, but Oppenheimer said the list is growing by about one pantry per hour, on average. During a 20-minute telephone conversation with Oppenheimer, three food pantries around the United States signed up on the Web site.

To donate quality produce to the hungry, go to Ampleharvest.org and click on “Find a pantry.” To register your food pantry, simply click on “Register a pantry.”