You say tomato, I say wait

LOCAL DISH  |  SHELLEY HANDLER

I’m not finicky, never have been. As a kid I loved everything from tongue to Brussel sprouts and was game to try just about anything. Barracuda in a light tomato sauce? Bring it on. Sweetbreads in brown butter, you betcha. Lobster Cantonese? Yes, please!

That said, there is one thing I will not touch: tomatoes, year round, no thanks. Not on a sub, not in a salad and, if you make salsa with some wan simulacrum of the real thing, I’m reaching for the Cholula. Like a kid at Christmas, I wait, with growing anticipation, for tomato season. I will hold out until things are in full swing, right about now, and then I fairly gallop to the farmers market to grab some succulent, lipstick-red Early Girls.

Truly, they are the only tomato I want to eat. And I want them with pickling cucumbers, balsamic vinegar and red onions. I want them on their own, with a drizzle of Greek olive oil atop garlicky bruschetta. I want them to be the T in my BLT, with lewd amounts of mayo. And I want them only on dark, crusty sourdough from Jane the Bakery on Geary. If you’re nice, I just might share.

B(L)T MY WAY (not a recipe, a prescription)

2 slices, a smidge thicker than half-inch, of Jane the Bakery sourdough, toasted crisp but not dark

5 or 6 half-inch slices of dripping-ripe Early Girls

3 slices thick-cut bacon, cooked crisp. Niman Ranch is local, their animals are humanely raised and their bacon is tasty. If you’re feeling like a baller, order some Beeler’s Bacon, made from responsibly raised Duroc hogs in Iowa. They ship. It’s worth it.

A stupid amount of your mayo of choice — I like Duke’s, but Best Foods will do in a pinch, or make your own, if you’re up for it — on both slices of the bread

Skip the lettuce; it’ll just get in the way. Put the two halves together, bacon on top of tomato. Eat it in your rattiest T-shirt or, if it’s hot out, naked with a dish towel around your neck. Pop a local IPA.

Cheers! This is summer, baby. At its very best.

Shelley Handler, a longtime local who was the first head chef at the legendary Chez Panisse Cafe in Berkeley and an instructor at the California Culinary Academy, now teaches her neighbors, in their own kitchens, to cook better.