Tonight I picked the first ripe, red tomato from this season’s garden.  It was really beautiful on the outside and pretty darn good on the inside too.  Here I am spokesmodeling with it:

We were going to have it with burgers, but then I found out we’re going to some unusual burger place tomorrow night, so we did a last-minute switcheroo and had BLTs instead. I served them on whole wheat with baby romaine lettuce, with some potato salad and grapes on the side.

The only item of note here is that I have learned the best, best way to make bacon:  put it in a 9×13 glass pan (this only holds about 5 strips, which works for us, but you could use a bigger dish or two dishes if you need more), then stick it in a cold oven.  Turn the oven on to 400 degrees and set the timer for 25 minutes.

It cooks slowly that way, almost confit-style the way it cooks in its own rendered fat.  When the 25 minutes are up, take it out, wipe it off on some paper towels, and as my old college roommate used to say, “Viola.”

Did we like it?  Oh yes.  That’s practically the Platonic ideal of summer food.

Did the kids eat it?  Miles ate two ears of corn on the cob and skipped the sandwiches.  Tobin bonked his head getting into his high chair and spent the first half of the meal nursing (did you know how difficult it is to eat a BLT while acting as a food source yourself?) and then had a little bit of applesauce.

Other notes:  We’ll be having these many more times this summer.  We especially go for the thick-cut maple bacon.