Tomatoes

My parents used to grow a lot of tomatoes. They didn't staked and the plants were like runners.

In the 1980s, When D was a baby, I grew a cherry tomato plant. It was ladened with trussed cherry tomatoes. Unfortunately, my landlord painted the house. The house was old and the paint had lead. The water engineer told me not to use the tomatoes. What a waste it was.

Then at Mt Eden Road, I grew so much tomatoes that I filled my whole chest freezer. It was then my Malaysian-Sri Lankan taught me to cook curry with tomatoes. It became my signature dish I offer for sale during Foodsale.

In Singapore, I was a professor's wife. i was also the university's garden with dirt under my finger nails. I grew cherry tomato in the balcony of third storey apartment. They won't ripen so I gave them to my very good friend M to make tomato chutney.

Now back in Auckland, every summer my garden is filled with tomato plants. Sam, my son is a tomato boy. He eats anything tomatoey, pizza, spaghetti bolognaise, tomato seafood udon noodle soup, salads and a piece of tomato in his lunch box.

So you will still find me with dirt under my nails and compost in the bin, so I can satisfy his "nothing is better than mum's home grown tomato."