Tomatoes and garden things (and yes, more rambling)

It's been a wet year, which never bodes well for my tomato plants.  For a while we had to put an electric fence close to the ground to keep the raccoons from devastating the crop, and believe me, they were doing it.  Once Cliff, bless his heart, got that problem taken care of, we started getting some nice, big, tasty tomatoes unblemished by the teeth of little varmints.

We have had far more Kirkland bacon (for BLT's) that anybody in our age group should consume.  But you know, a time comes when you ask yourself, "Do I want to graze on broccoli, skip making biscuits forever, ban pie from my life, and never have another fried green tomato so I can live 30 more years, or shall I just take my chances and eat the stuff that I long to eat, the things that really make life worth living?"

The thing is, my tomatoes usually suffer from blight to some degree, so I never know whether they will supply me through the season.  Now, if I have ever led any of my readers to believe I'm a master gardener, I have deceived you.  I have never in my life done ANYTHING to the best of my ability, except in the realm of cooking sometimes (biscuit nirvana).  I look around at other folks' gardens and the tomatoes are blight-free.  So obviously it's my laziness that is the problem.  I do move the crop from one spot to another each year, but beyond that, I don't do the things I've been told I should (or shouldn't) do to prevent blight.  Too much trouble.  Most years the plants provide enough to satisfy us.  

There are so many crops I've given up on.  Zucchini, for instance, and cucumbers.  Before I can get any reward for my efforts at planting viney crops, the squash bugs devastate them.  Now, here's where I should have made some effort to actually make some friends, because all around me people are saying, "Oh my, I have too much zucchini (or cucumbers, or melons).  People run the other way when I try to offer them some."

In my whole life, nobody ever offered me any zucchini or cucumbers.  Or anything else from their garden, really, at least not since my mother grew too old to garden.  What crazy person would turn down food?  I would be running toward the source, at least until I'd had my fill.  OK, enough of that.  I am ashamed, by the way, that I can't raise something that most people have more of than they can use.  

On the subject of BLT's, I recently saw on a billboard a picture of a grilled BLT.  This brought back a memory from the past, because the first time I ever tasted a grilled BLT was at a bar and grill where my daughter and I went to meet two men.  Yep, my daughter and I met two men in a bar, the only time in my life I met anybody in a bar.  It was in my old blogging days: I had done an AOL blog search to see if any Kansas City area folks had an online journal.  What I didn't know then was that there was a far bigger world than AOL, and that's where most people did their blogging.  So the only local person I found was Russ, who worked for Hallmark.  I was the first to comment on his new effort.  As time went on, another fellow (Sim) began leaving comments for Russ; and then my daughter joined us.  We would have full conversations in the comment section of Russ' blog.  

Rachel and I decided that since we had all these typed conversations and weren't that far from one another, we should meet in person.  This is the type of thing that makes Cliff shake his head in disbelief, but I guess he figured our daughter was surely clever enough to keep us out of trouble.  

At this tavern, we all had a grilled BLT.  It was delicious!  Later, at home, I tried grilling one myself.  It was very good, but I decided it was just too much trouble (and too many calories... added butter on the outside, plus a slice of cheese melted on the inside) so I think I only made the grilled variety twice.  Cliff didn't care for them toasted.  

Because a billboard had sparked the memory of something fattening and good, I decided yesterday to take the trouble to grill my BLT.  It was good, but still way too much trouble.  However, it made me think about that meet-up with two Internet guys.  I'm still in touch with one of them, Sim, on Facebook.  Russ has totally vanished, and I sometimes wonder what happened to him.

Funny, the things that will trigger a memory.  It's amazing how often food is the trigger.  

Peace.