The Story of Mr. Stripey... with a Spicy Ending

Our high desert climate is uniquely great... cool and dry in the winter and absolutely glorious in the summer. Summer temperatures are moderate by Arizona standards, and daily rains keep our little oasis green and blooming all summer long. At night we snooze with the windows open and comforters up; by day, intense sun is moderated by the storms that race across the desert, showing off huge cotton ball thunderheads, booming with thunder and lightning.

Because of this upside-down climatic state, we got away with not planting tomatoes until mid-June this year. The last thing I did during my shopping frenzy at the nursery was to pick up little tomato seedling with the whimsical tag "Mr. Stripey" - who could resist? And as the other tomato plants burst forth with a flurry of yellow blossoms and verdant leafiness throughout June and July, Mr. Stripey was stubborn - he would bloom and then give up, bloom and then give up. We even googled Mr. Stripey and got some disappointing news - "very little fruit - not much flavor" said the reviews from other disgruntled gardeners. So we didn't pay much attention when one blossom finally turned into a tiny green Mr. Stripey - "very little fruit, not much flavor" we'd say, with a fatalistic shake of our heads.

Then one day we noticed that he was growing, got a little bigger, and then grew, and grew, and grew, and GREW into the giant orange and green striped Godzilla of all heirloom tomatoes. Even more astonishing, several other potential Mr. Stripeys have popped out, while the more normal fruit on the other vines has ripened and been gobbled up in pasta sauce, sandwiches, salads. Wouldn't you know it - Mr. Stripey turned out to be the King Tomato of the lot - now we say things like "I remember him when he was just a little guy..." Just goes to show you - sometimes you need to pay some extra attention to the quiet ones, and don't believe everything you google... they just might turn out to be big winners! I'd show you a pic of Mr. Stripey but he was sliced up last night and served with just a dash of aged balsamic. Delicious.

Now for the spicy part: Dick and I both created entries for the Salsa Competition last Saturday at the Farmer's Market. We tested our creations on Jim and Sara, who suggested some astute flavor enhancements. We perfected the recipes and made up the final batches for the Big Day. Mine - Crazy Cathy's Wild & Wacky Watermelon Salsa - was a refreshing and unusual mix - very tasty, but I didn't expect to win with a "non-traditional" entry - not in this very Mexican town! But Dick's recipe - Screamin' Dick's Hellfire Roasted Tomato Salsa - was as good as it gets. Tomatoes and chiles, roasted on the grill, lots of garlic and onion, with just enough lime to make your taste buds tingle... in my book, it was salsa perfection.

We were on the tennis courts on Farmer's Market day when the smell of fresh chiles being roasted at the market wafted across the courts. We could see people walking, zombie-like, toward that intoxicating smell - as if we were in Guyana and Jim had just mixed up a new batch of Kool-Aid. We finished our set and ran home to grab our entries and take them to the market... then we whiled away time chatting with friends and political candidates doing their last bit of glad-handing before Tuesday's election, all the while looking nervously toward the salsa booth, where the judges were tasting salsas with grim and critical expressions, clipboards in hand. Dick was so anxious that he stood behind the judges, trying to hear what they were saying. A photo of this showed up (embarrassingly) in the Monday paper. "Who's that guy in the baseball cap and Cuba tee-shirt, looking over the judge's shoulders in that photo on the front page?" "Um... never saw him before in my life..."

Long story short - the winner was a standard salsa that could have come off the shelves at Safeway - not that we're bitter. When you fall off the horse, you have to climb right back on - so we're working on our recipes for the Chili Competition.

Animal Dreams

As any of you who are patient enough to have read this blog for a while may remember, we fell in love with a goat that we named "Gaston" last winter. We were in France with our friends the Fabians, walking around the village in the crisp, frosty air, when we came upon Gaston, with his sweet little yellow eyes, bleating "Why am I the only creature stuck out in this arctic freeze besides the American idiots?"... or some French equivalent. We fed him, took his picture, talked to him, and generally made asses of ourselves - I'm sure the village ladies were peeking out behind their curtains, shaking their heads and rolling their eyes in Gallic amusement.

As if that wasn't exciting enough - there's an update! When the Fabians returned to Le Gue de la Chaine this summer, they went to visit Gaston and - voila - the farmer who owns Gaston was cleaning up the pen. They struck up a conversation and found out that Gaston's real name is "Popeye" - very macho, don't you think? While deep in conversation, Margaret (Madame Fabian) had a brilliant idea - could she lease Gaston from the farmer for a few days to mow down some weeds? Of course, said the farmer, secretly thinking how he couldn't wait to tell his wife how many euros he charged this lady from California so Gaston, er, Popeye could eat some lovely new cuisine.

Well... everybody was pleased with this plan, except Gaston/Popeye, who refused to eat the long grass, and instead bleated his head off and ate a hole in the neighbor's hedge, which now has to be paid for. Can't help but think something was lost in translation.

On a more somber note, we lost a wonderful friend this week. Jim and Sara's bulldog, Omar, was not what you'd call handsome - unless you were a lady bulldog, I guess. But he had an excess of charisma... extreme life force... especially when he catapulted all 65 muscular pounds of himself onto your lap when you were distracted by something else. Dick likened this leap to a fire hydrant being thrown onto his balls, not a good thing for a guy. Omie used to try to get my attention by doing what he perceived as bounding around playfully, which was more like a canine version of "white men can't jump"... but he tried, he really did. Then if I still didn't pay attention to him, he'd steal his brother Dylan's tennis ball and run off with it, shaking his head and growling... and if that still didn't get me, he'd eat a few rocks... got a rise out of me every time.

When we waved goodbye as Jim and Sara drove off on vacation in June, we never dreamed that we wouldn't see Omie again. When we got the news that he'd been run over and killed, the whole neighborhood mourned. "I need my Omie fix!" said our tennis friend Mike. "He was such a funny little fart..." sniffed Suzi. The only non-mourner was Vicky the cat, who showed her face in the back yard for the first time in several months. All in all, it's very sad - we'll miss him - but we know there are probably plenty of warm laps, slobbery tennis balls and really tasty rocks in doggie heaven.