America Has Never Been So Desperate for Tomato Season

On Saturday, I walked a mile from my Brooklyn apartment to a farmers’ market with a clarity of purpose that felt ordained by the heavens. I didn’t really have time for the errand, or a solid idea of how I would use its spoils, but I was compelled onto the sidewalk for a very specific task. It’s tomato season, and I was a woman in want of tomatoes.

I don’t know when tomatoes became an object of such obsession for me, but they seem to have grown similarly important to nearly everyone I know. Tomatoes and have latched onto the idea with a fervor that feels more wild-eyed and ubiquitous than in previous years. I hiked to the farmers’ market on a hot, busy day because friends on and Twitter had posted so many photos of its impossible bounty—the straw that broke the camel’s back, after two weeks of watching them share recipes for and and .