Chocolate Poetry

Chocolate Cherry Tomato

"I think that I shall never see

A cherry tomato lovelier than thee.

A Chocolate Cherry that I planted here;

Alms from a grower with vision clear.

A cherry tomato that produces a gift;

Providing every tomato lover with a lift.

A taste so sweet, so undeniably tart;

It can only be classified as work of art.

It’s that special tomato in my garden;

A taste I will miss, when the season is done."

Modesto's 7th Poet Laureate

Somewhere, Stella Beratlis, the City of Modesto's 7th Poet Laureate, is doing a face palm. (Alfred) Joyce Kilmer, meanwhile, a hero of World War I who penned the poem "Trees" that I ripped off with no shame whatsoever, is probably spinning in his grave.

Why pick on Stella? Because she is an avid vegetable gardener, and published author I might add, who has also professed a love for cherry tomatoes. That, and we went to high school together (go Patriots!). As for Kilmer, I needed something even my simple brain could comprehend.

Chocolate Cherry Tomato Plant-Citrus Heights

My friends and tomato growing maniacs, I come to you with a message today: If there is room for only one cherry tomato in your garden next summer, I highly recommend the Chocolate Cherry. A close cousin to the treasured Black Cherry tomato, there are also subtle differences that set it apart. Both are black or deep purple in color. Both are cherry varieties. But the comparison ends there.

My Chocolate Cherry tomato, which now stands at a height of roughly ten feet in front of this temporary rental home, resulted from a $1 investment into a starter plant grown by a Citrus Heights tomato maniac by the name of Melanie Steffens. Melanie had extra plants from her seed starting effort. I had room for one extra plant and a spare buck.

Call it a marriage made in heaven.

Forest of Cherry Tomato Production

Of the six tomato plants that comprise the Bird tomato growing efforts this year, three have been Grand Slams in terms of tomato production. Yet another has been a steady, get on base producer and the other two, much like this year's San Francisco Giants team, struck out at ever opportunity.

I bet you didn't know growing tomatoes and baseball had so much in common. But I'm getting way off topic here, plus I get depressed whenever I think about the Giants. So, back to tomatoes I go.

Memorial Stadium: Berkeley, CA

I like cherry tomatoes because they represent a portable snack. You can pick them and take them everywhere. I saw a young lady produce a bag of cherry tomatoes at a Cal football game in Memorial Stadium several years ago and thought it to be a rather brilliant idea.

I had been focused on somehow smuggling a flask of whiskey into that stadium -- so much so I didn't think about the three cherry tomato plants at home -- teeming with production I might add. While I'd sentenced myself to some overpriced, deep-fried snack from a stadium vendor, this rather brilliant young lady managed to produce something far more healthy and far more satisfying. And, I'll tell you this much, she didn't have to sneak it in either.

A Transportable and Healthy Snack!

Taking a cue from this lady, I load up a plastic sandwich bag with Chocolate Cherry tomatoes before heading into work every morning. It is at a size now where's it's producing 10-20 ripe tomatoes nearly every single day. The numbers diminish somewhat late in the week, but by the time Monday morning rolls around again, there's my Chocolate Cherry, teeming with this week's breakfast and lunch snack.

Pros and cons: The Chocolate Cherry appears to be more disease resistant than the Black Cherry. Either that, or I'm just the recipient of dumb luck. But I can't begin to tell you how many times disease has either interrupted or curtailed Black Cherry production in my garden. That hasn't been a problem this year with the Chocolate Cherry, and it's resisted a leaf spot problem that struck the Thessaloniki tomato planted just a few feet away.

The Chocolate Cherry

Unlike many cherry tomato varieties, Chocolate Cherry fruit does not split. They're portable over long distances. The skins are much tougher. Indeed, there's almost a slight crunch when one bites into an under-ripened Chocolate Cherry. You can dump a bunch of them into a sandwich bag and won't experience the problem of split, mushy cherry tomatoes when you arrive at your intended destination.

Finally, in terms of taste? I'll be honest. The Chocolate Cherry does not offer the zesty taste explosion that is the Black Cherry. It's a bit more mild. This isn't to tell you that Chocolate Cherry doesn't taste good. It does. This variety will find a home in next year's garden, that much I can tell you. But I'm not going to tell you it's the best cherry variety I've tried.

It will, however, rank among the best I've ever grown. It will join that pantheon list that includes West Sac Crack, Pink Ping Pong, Black Cherry, Sungella and countless others that have graced previous gardens in previous lifetimes.

After all, a cherry tomato that drives a man to write really bad poetry can't be all that bad, can it?

Blame, Properly Placed

John Lennon

A wise British-born philosopher and poet once stated the following:

"Everyday we used to make it love

Why can't we be making love nice and easy

It's time to spread our wings and fly

Don't let another day go by my love

It'll be just like starting over

Starting over"

But I'm not blaming John Lennon for my sudden burst of strange activity last weekend. Nope, that would be blame misplaced. The fault lies squarely upon the shoulders of a certain garden writer who toils for a certain daily newspaper that is printed and distributed in the Sacramento area.

Time to Plant!

The words written by Debbie Arrington in the Home and Garden section of the Sacramento Bee were quite simple really: "It's time to plant (BLANK)." And that's all Bill Bird really needed. Because the first thought that jolted through my gin-addled mind was, plant? PLANT! It's time to plant! "TIME TO PLANT," the voices in my head suddenly screamed at the top of their lungs.

Which is why my new neighbors in a well seasoned subdivision of Citrus Heights were treated the sight of a strange man bundled up in a heavy coat, tearing up a planter area in the front yard of a rental home in a heavy rainstorm. If that activity didn't raise any suspicion, certainly my chase down neighborhood gutters for hundreds of worms that came out to enjoy the deluge certainly sparked discussion.

Free Worms! Free!

Or perhaps they've been treated to somewhat crazy behavior before? Or perhaps they know that worms are good for the garden? And, yes, there is a garden. There will be a garden everywhere I go. I may be "Starting Over," as Lennon crooned, but the garden goes with me.

It's not much when compared to the massive garden efforts that consumed an entire quarter-acre in an area once known the Bird Back 40. But it's enough to plant a row or three of radishes, six broccoli plant starters and six red leaf lettuce starter plants.

The Spring Garden

And although Ms. Arrington's specific instructions didn't say so, my new/old planting area also contains rows set aside for green onions and carrots. Because you can't make Pam Farley's famous Loaded Fried Rice meal without a proper helping of carrots and green onions.

I had wondered through the months if this desire to plant would ever return. The skies opened up and began to cry after I had just moved into the new neighborhood. In doing so, I left behind the remains of a garden and a home that hurt anytime I stepped near it.

The Mantis Tills Again...

But time in a new setting and time alone has a strange way of healing a broken heart. The Mantis Tiller that churned up countless raised beds in North Natomas found the soil to be more than adequate in the new Citrus Heights setting. The worms that I captured on their mad rush to the drainage gutters found the spot I'd amended to be quite acceptable and moved right in.

But, more importantly, the love for digging in the dirt suddenly returned with a vengeance. I didn't lose that passion. It just took a short vacation. The only thing that's missing now is a gardening partner.

Perhaps, in time, that will return as well.

Confessions of a Serial Abuser

YUM!

The mental health professionals who fawn over me at nearly every turn these days tell me that the first step to recovery is admitting that you have a problem to begin with. What the Hell do they know? Seriously, however, this is my confession to you. On this Super Bowl Sunday, I'm here to admit that I am a serial abuser.

I abuse beans. I didn't mean too, of course, but I've been abusing beans for years. It's always been a goal of mine to make the perfect pot of home-cooked beans. But it really didn't matter what recipe I used as my beans would turn out more like a refried bean dish than anything else. Barbecue beans came out looking and tasting like barbecue refried beans. Boston Baked Beans? You guessed it, Boston Baked Refried Beans.

Ranch Style Beans Copycat

Oh -- I tried all sorts of tricks to solve my little abuse problem. Additional ingredients? Check! Soaking the beans overnight? Check! Different types of beans? Check! But, in the end, it really didn't matter. My beans would fall apart into a sad looking mush.

What in Hades was I doing wrong?

But, thanks to this wonderful invention called the internets, I would find a solution to my problem. The internet, at some point, replaced grandmother and her fine advice. It was a simple problem with a simple answer:

Don't Abuse the Bean!

I was abusing my beans. I had been for years. Beans are fragile things the man on the other side of the internet portal explained. Treat them like you would treat your own children. Not that I would drop my own kids into a vat of simmering water mind you, but I got the idea.

If you are to believe the old Klingon poverb (Wrath of Khan) that "revenge is a dish best served cold," then one must also believe that "beans are to be treated with care." They are not to be boiled or placed on a hard simmer for many hours. That just results in a mush. Beans are to be brought to a boil and then allowed to simmer gently over a period of three to four hours. No bubbles! Bubbles are bad! Bubbles in your slow-cooked bean mixture mean BAD NEWS. Nope, the aim here is for a gentle, slow roil.

Selected Spices

This isn't as easy as it sounds -- especially for those of you to be stuck with electric stoves. Gas works best. And when it comes to my home-cooked bean creations, I'm an expert at gas.

I've always had a love affair with beans -- especially on Super Bowl Sunday. Those legendary Hamm's Scam (you think we're serving great beer, but it's really just Hamm's) parties of the past featuring deep fried chicken strips or wings plus a pot of home-cooked beans may be history for me now -- but they will never be forgotten.

My most recent goal has been trying to recreate one of my favorite canned bean dishes: Ranch Style Beans. Although there's a pretty good copycat recipe on a blog called Homesick Texan, it wasn't quite what I was looking for. It was close, but it was missing a key ingredient and I wasn't quite sure what.

"Must Have" Ingredient

I'm not here to tell you today that the recipe I've stumbled upon is by any means perfect. But it's a pretty good imitation in my fair opinion. To be honest and fair, it's not the healthiest meal on the planet. Which means you shouldn't be serving yourself this creation every week or every month for that matter.

But for special occasions like Super Bowl Sunday? When you really don't give darn about the two teams in the big game? And the team you do root for is coming off a pathetically bad two win season? This makes for a good meal. And helps erase the pain of a 14-loss season.

Ranch Style Beans Copycat Recipe

Three pieces of thick cut bacon (I usually get the peppered or honey-cured bacon from meat counter at Raley's or Bel-Air.

1-3 cups of Pinto beans (soaked overnight)

2 teaspoons chili powder

2 teaspoons ground cumin

2 teaspoons dried oregano

2 teaspoons cocoa

1-2 teaspoons garlic salt

1 12-ounce can tomato juice

1 32-ounce container beef broth, plus 3-4 additional cups as needed

Directions: Cut three pieces of bacon in half and fry in a skillet over medium-low heat until well browned. Remove bacon to drain and cool and pour bacon fat into the pot you will be using to cook your beans. Add container of beef broth, plus two additional cups of beef broth, leaving two in reserve. Add tomato juice, chili powder, ground cumin, oregano, cocoa and garlic salt.

Rinse soaked beans and add them to pot. Place cooked and cooled bacon into a food processor or blender and chop into fine bits. Scrape bacon into pot and bring to a solid boil. Reduce heat to a slow roil. Cook beans at a low heat, stirring every 30 minutes, until tender. Beans should be ready in about 3.5 hours, but may need additional cooking to completely soften. Test taste and add additional garlic salt if needed.

Enjoy!