In Praise of Tomatoes: A Year in the Life of a Home Tomato Grower by Steven Shepherd

Hardcover – January 1, 1996 

In Praise of Tomatoes is an exquisite, lyrical memoir. In an honest and meticulous voice, Shepherd recounts the age-old cycle of sowing, planting, nurturing, and harvesting tomatoes from his garden – a narrow raised box in his front yard. It begins one December evening as he pages through the newest crop of seed catalogs and leads to cool spring mornings transplanting seedlings and summer afternoons picking ripe fruits with his ten-year-old son. But the harvest is twofold, and includes such wonders as the building of friendships with neighbors, a midnight grunion run on the beach, and a languid raft trip on a warm afternoon. There is Albert, the seventy-eight-year-old neighbor with whom Shepherd shares a garden plot but who speaks no English, and Rose, who uses a time-honored Sicilian family recipe to cook a year’s supply of tomato sauce in two afternoons.