THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, July 21, 1994 TAG: 9407190040
SECTION: FLAVOR PAGE: F01 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Ruth Fantasia
LENGTH: Short : 37 lines
MOST HUSBANDS BRING flowers when they've come home late from work five days in a row.
Mine brings fruit.
Paul breezed into the house the other night with a bagful of ripe tomatoes.
I made myself a tomato sandwich and sat right down to eat it.
``Don't I get dinner, dear?'' he asked.
``Sure. Make yourself a tomato sandwich.''
After nine months of those mealy, pale grocery store tomatoes, a fresh one tastes like heaven.
But locally grown tomatoes have been slow to arrive at produce stands and markets in Hampton Roads this year because of the hot, dry weather.
Stanford Mosley of North Landing Produce says his tomato crop is suffering.
``The're just not turning red, and blossom end rot is hurting what I do have,'' says Mosley.
Pam O'Brien of the Bennetts Creek Market in Suffolk says only the fields that have been irrigated are producing any tomatoes. ``It's been so hot that they're burning,'' she says.
Fortunately, O'Brien has been able to buy tomatoes from a farmer in Edenton, N.C., which have been ``absolutely beautiful,'' she says. Once those are gone, they'll start buying from the Eastern Shore.
Vine-ripened tomatoes are running about 99 cents a pound in area markets. by CNB