Behind The Tomatoes

Yes, I am growing tomatoes. And yes, I'm tracking their growth and putting them on a blog. But I'm not just doing this to grow tomatoes.

If you don't know a lot about me, I love to cook. I can also say with a fair amount of confidence that I'm pretty good at it, at least for not going to cooking school. Let's put it this way, I was watching Food Network before it was cool. I can remember quite a few times being given the "he's a weirdy" look when I would tell someone I like to watch the Food Network. I guess the best description would be that I'm a confident cook. Not everything turns out how I plan and there are those occasional, just absolute train wrecks. But give me a few good ingredients, and I'm very confident I could give you a good meal.

And it's this passion, not just for cooking, but more importantly for the food that I want to pass on. I've been following the blog of a Manhattanite who teaches cooking classes, Rob Endelman. He is big time into organic everything. Although it's not really the organic push that I'm really interested in, he has convinced me of the importance of knowing where the food that I put in my body comes from and what's in it, which granted has caused me to start buying more organic products. But more importantly, with two children, I want them to see that actual food - real food you grow from the ground or real animals that aren't fed the wrong things or injected with tons of hormones - is the way we were meant to eat.

Case in point here: One night I made spaghetti with spinach, basil, tomatoes, chicken and parmesan cheese. Charlie, my two year old son, wouldn't eat it. But he ate the same meal the week prior, except I had made it with rotini pasta instead of spaghetti. So, the next time I made the meal, I decided to let him make it with me. I got out the step ladder and he climbed up to the counter as his eyes got really big just looking at all these different ingredients. I showed him the dried spaghetti, which at this point he thought were drumsticks. So he drummed on the counter while I put the spaghetti in the boiling water. While that boiled, we cut some tomatoes, we grated cheese, we squeezed lemons, we thawed frozen spinach, we sliced basil, and we tasted everything as we went along. When the pasta was done, I took some out and we both tasted it. Done to perfection!!

Then came dinner time: He ate the whole thing.

Now, I'm not a child psychologist, my wife is, so I'll leave all of that up to her. But I can't deny the fact that he saw what went into his dinner, he tried each item as we prepared it and he knew what was in it when it came time to eat. Then he gobbled it down. What a joy it was for me to share that with him.

And I want to take it a step further than Rob did. I want my children to know that God is the one who makes the plants and vegetables and fruits and animals grow. This is the way He made us and He has given us all this food to enjoy and give Him thanks. Very simple, but very important. I want them to know that He is the one who grows the food and He created it that way.

So, that's the real reason why I wanted to start growing tomatoes. And now, pretty much every time I start dinner, Charlie wants me to get out the "stairs", as he calls them, so he can climb up to the counter and help.

"For by Him all things were created - things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities - all things were created by Him and for Him. He is before all things and in Him all things hold together."
Colossians 1:16, 17