Frying Green Tomatoes
The rain comes late in the fall
these days in dry as a bone California.
Thanksgiving now just two days away.
Last real rain here was way back in May.
But maybe rain tonight the forecasters say.
All through this long mild fall dry spell, I have
managed to keep one last summer tomato plant.
Mostly brown and tattered but still producing,
albeit at a snail’s pace, with these short days
and longer colder nights of late November.
After cleaning out the dusty rain gutters
and the fall dry leaf filled drainage ditches
around the house, I finally called it a season
on that last tomato plant relegating its pruned
parts and root ball to the compost pile out back
to be utilized for next spring’s garden fertilizer.
But just before I did that though
I picked the last few green tomatoes,
small ones mostly, sliced and I fried them up
on my outdoor camp stove and savored them
with salt, pepper and a cup of steaming coffee
outside in the frosty November morning chill.
I cannot escape my country boy roots
and sometimes I do things like that to keep
my past alive. Not wasting anything still edible
from the summer garden. Especially, in the chill
of fall so near Thanksgiving. That’s what my parents
taught me. Plus, frying green tomatoes in the house
really messes up the kitchen whether it rains or not.
Edward Ferri, Jr. grew up on a "non profit" farm on the drought side of the Santa Cruz Mountains of California when "Bailing wire, gumption, and spit" were the "apps" of the day. He now lives in those same mountains where he maintains an active Boo Radley tree for two bright grandchildren who are now old enough to “get it” but they say nothing so they can expand their collection of oddities. His poetry has appeared in multiple publications and he is the author of GLASSY AIR, Poems Kindled in the Long Shadow of a Lone Motorcycle.
https://booklocker.com/books/9813.html
The rain comes late in the fall
these days in dry as a bone California.
Thanksgiving now just two days away.
Last real rain here was way back in May.
But maybe rain tonight the forecasters say.
All through this long mild fall dry spell, I have
managed to keep one last summer tomato plant.
Mostly brown and tattered but still producing,
albeit at a snail’s pace, with these short days
and longer colder nights of late November.
After cleaning out the dusty rain gutters
and the fall dry leaf filled drainage ditches
around the house, I finally called it a season
on that last tomato plant relegating its pruned
parts and root ball to the compost pile out back
to be utilized for next spring’s garden fertilizer.
But just before I did that though
I picked the last few green tomatoes,
small ones mostly, sliced and I fried them up
on my outdoor camp stove and savored them
with salt, pepper and a cup of steaming coffee
outside in the frosty November morning chill.
I cannot escape my country boy roots
and sometimes I do things like that to keep
my past alive. Not wasting anything still edible
from the summer garden. Especially, in the chill
of fall so near Thanksgiving. That’s what my parents
taught me. Plus, frying green tomatoes in the house
really messes up the kitchen whether it rains or not.
Edward Ferri, Jr. grew up on a "non profit" farm on the drought side of the Santa Cruz Mountains of California when "Bailing wire, gumption, and spit" were the "apps" of the day. He now lives in those same mountains where he maintains an active Boo Radley tree for two bright grandchildren who are now old enough to “get it” but they say nothing so they can expand their collection of oddities. His poetry has appeared in multiple publications and he is the author of GLASSY AIR, Poems Kindled in the Long Shadow of a Lone Motorcycle.
https://booklocker.com/books/9813.html