By David Harbilas

My boss recently approached me to ask that I change an item on our menu.

It’s never easy to hear criticism about one’s food at the professional level, but it helps the think of these moments as opportunities to do something new.

He opened Julia Child’s first cookbook, recently depicted in the movie Julie and Julia, and found a recipe for a potato gratin with tomatoes.

Rather than try to make any improvements on the original I thought it might be best to offer a simple alternative. Child’s version calls for a simple tomato sauce made with peeled, seeded, and diced tomatoes baked in layers of scallop cut tomatoes.

Here the sauce is replaced by a layer of tomato confit so that the final result is similar to a terrine or torte. In fact, this entire dish can be cooked inside a tart shell or puff pastry to make a sort of tart, which would make an excellent lunch entrée served with a simple salad and glass of wine.

Serves 4

• 5 potatoes, peeled and cut ¼ inch thick
• 6 tomatoes, peeled and cut into filets
• 2 cloves garlic Read the rest of this entry »

By Vanessa Richins

Recently we learned about the friends of tomatoes.

This time we turn attention to the foes – these are the plants that you don’t want to grow anywhere near your tomatoes.

Corn: Corn and tomatoes have an enemy in common. Whether you know it as the tomato fruitworm or the corn earworm, it’s bad, bad news. These 1.5-2″ monsters chew their way through your tomatoes, corn, and a host of other plants.

Dill: It’s strange….when dill is young, it actually enhances tomato growth and health. Once it is mature, however, the opposite is true and it will stunt tomato growth.

Potatoes: Remember how there was a Read the rest of this entry »