This time of year, if you haven’t seen a Creole tomato it’s probably right behind you.
Summer is revving up, so these ultra-seasonal beauties are everywhere, big red orbs tumbling from bins at farmers markets and fruit stands and grocery stores.
They’re on restaurant menus, where the Creole tomato name often gets bold face treatment, like caviar or truffles. And you can spot them around our neighborhoods too, in the reclaimed vacant lot urban farms and in little vegetable patch gardens, pulling the fuzzy green arms of the tomato plant down as if just asking you to pluck them and relieve the tension of so much seasonal ripeness.
It’s hard to overstate the spell that Creole tomatoes cast on the New Orleans palate. Looking to celebrate the Creole tomato?
There's the Creole Tomato Festival at the French Market, June 11 and 12, 10 a.m.-7 p.m.
For schedules, details and menus see www.frenchmarket.org
And in June, the French Creole restaurant Muriel's Jackson Square begins its annual Creole tomato tasting menu, with the crop worked into three courses (including dessert).
Muriel's Jackson Square
801 Chartres St., 504-568-1885; www.muriels.com
