By Michelle Fabio

Gary Ibsen, founder and executive director of the Carmel TomatoFest in Carmel, California, loves tomato stories so much that he offers tickets to the famous festival to those with the best stories every year.

And don’t we all love great tomato stories, especially around the holidays?

The 2008 winners are as follows:

1st Place: Larry Volpe, San Jose, CA. “I teach at Seven Trees School in San Jose in a low-socioeconomic neighborhood made up mostly of Hispanic immigrants. When I started teaching I quickly noticed that the non-English speaking, immigrant community I served was reluctant to come to school. I had very few parents coming to Back to School Night, and even less would come to various other school functions. Working in the garden has changed this to the extreme….”

2nd Place: Linda Brown, San Ramon, CA. “After the yard was Read the rest of this entry »

By Michelle Fabio

For Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d share my own tomato love story, or how I fell in love with the tomato.

There are more of these stories published at Gary Ibsen’s TomatoFest website, which inspired me to think about my earliest memories of eating and enjoying the beloved tomato.

Food memories always tend to hold of lot of comfort and nostalgia for times past, but nothing reminds me more of my childhood than a tomato fresh out of the garden.

Indeed, if you ask me the perfect way to eat a tomato, I would say Read the rest of this entry »