Tomato Time

dumplings! NYT gift link to that thing you've been thinking about making! also, weirdly, a beer recommendation!

Happy Saturday! Happy bank holiday!

It is, apparently, summer! I went away for five days, for all of which I was dressed incorrectly and for all of which I was madly in love with New York and the entire American dream, thank you all so much for recommendations, I did almost nothing but cling tenderly to my beloved friends (who have just been nominated for FOUR TONYS, which is in my opinion worth the hideousness of a year apart).

Anyway: I went away for five days, and came back to 27 degrees and blazing sunshine and every perfect tomato in the world.

The first thing I did when I got home was buy a big paper bag of tomatoes at the shop. Someone had set up a sprinkler system in the street for people to walk through to cool off, and I twirled in the sprinkler in the street with a stranger, and ate my tomatoes from the bag. It was very New-York-in-the-movies, if nothing like the New York I myself experienced, which was a lot more subway vents and honking.

“You people don’t have honks in London, I know,” said our taxi driver, Richie, wisely, on the ride from JFK into the city. “You’re all too civilised.” I didn’t like to tell him that there are honks here too. Our honks seemed pathetic in comparison to Richie’s honks, and, indeed, the honks of other drivers confronted with Richie. Richie’s style of driving was to find a square inch of tarmac anywhere in the vague direction of forwards, and sort of wedge the taxi into it by brute force and side-to-side shifting, like a snake trying to hypnotise a mouse. When people expressed disapproval, he leaned out of the window and made gestures at them with both fists. It was a perfect way to enter into the city and I recommend it completely. This will be the first thing I recommend on my list of New York recommendations, which I will do in a couple of weeks maybe or when I stop being so completely knackered. My plan was to do it today, but I feel much too sludgy to opine on anything: how can such a small time difference be so destabilising? Also I suppose I didn’t sleep much, due to needing to follow my friends around and look at their beautiful faces at all times possible.

Anyway, this is better for this weekend. You are unlikely to need a New York recommendations list at short notice, but you are likely to need to eat this very soon, probably as soon as now.