My mom grows our tomatoes for us! This year she planted 145 plants so we are anticipating a ton of tomatoes. We always make gazpacho, tomato galettes and panzanella. This year I am commited to making a killer tomato jam.

We have tomatoes in a few dishes on the menu. We have an heirloom salad with marinated smelts, a heirloom tomato tart, and tomato jam that goes with a whitefish.

We definitely will hit up heirloom season in a variety of ways. We have over 18 varieties of heirloom tomatoes growing in our greenhouse and plan to use them in all kinds of fun ways. Pickled for cocktails, of course on the menu and towards September we will do a canning class.

Heirloom tomatoes, most definitely. We do everything - confit, sauce, salsa-type things, salads.

We use mixed heirloom tomatoes to make the panzanella salad. We add cucumbers, green & red onions, olive oil and bread. Perfect for summertime!

Tomato season in Ohio is like christmas! Us chefs all freak out and put them everywhere we can on our menu. Right now we have on "Dads" tomato sandwich, which is a revamped version of Jonathon Sawyers fathers favorite sandy. Whole seat Pullman, lemon aioli, olive oil pressed onion and local tomatoes. We also do a vegan potato gnocchi with tomato ratatouille. Super excited to be hitting peak season!

The only thing that can make a perfect, locally grown tomato better is the
addition of home-made bacon, fresh, out-of-the-ground lettuce, mayo and
good, crusty bread. We do other things with tomatoes. We'll take the
really ripe ones and puree them with a touch of garlic and thyme, strain and
cook down into a 'conserva.' It is a great addition to a sauce or spiked
with a little good vinegar, it is delicious blopped onto a piece of grilled
meat or fish. Nothing, however, gets me more excited about tomato season
than the perfect BLT.

In St. Louis tomatoes are struggling with the intense heat at the moment. We like the combination of mozzarella curds and a slightly thickened whey to begin to create a non traditional caprese. Rye crisps, globe basil, thai basil, opal basil, habenero oil, which takes on a floral and tomato like flavor, and as many types of tomatoes as we can get our hands on.

We're doing all kinds of cold tomato soups in the Food on the Dole Salon--spicy gazpacho with whatever tomatoes are aromatic and flavorful, garnished with all kinds of crisp peppers and chiles and melon; garlicky cold tomato soup (sans Gazpacho's kick) with basil pistou--anything to really feature the beauty of an in-season tomato. And what better way than to leave it raw and serve it without much manipulation heat-wise? As far as types--it's all about aroma for me, then sweetness--heirloom or otherwise. Sure, we get some great heirloom tomatoes--but don't be fooled by the ones being hocked out of season--just because it is labeled "heirloom" doesn't necessarily guarantee a great (or even good) tomato!

yes tomatoes, finally!!! i love tomatoes raw...you really get to taste it in
it's truest form. i just made a salad last night that at home that was just
so delicious that i'm going to put it in the menu at vincent - persian
cucumbers from our garden, beefsteak tomatoes from our garden, green zebra
from our garden...lol, green acres' mixed baby greens & radishes. dressed
w/a creamy red wine vinaigrette, herbs, bacobits. obviously, i won't be
putting bacobits on it at work, lol.