I grew up with delicious tomatoes... The sun and soil treat tomatoes differently in Turkey... Italians would understand me...
Waiting for the first tomato of the season all winter and spring was a painful joy. Nobody would ever see one single tomato anywhere during all winter. The first tomato of the year would break the monotonicity of life. Coming from the green houses in the south, it would lack the taste, smell and color, but it would taste oh so good after such long wait all winter. It would be prohibitively expensive, too. Mother would grab one or two at the farmers market, give a slice to each of us with a little salt on top. Tomatoes from the south (Antalya) and west (Manisa) that were picked up a day or two back would start pouring into the market, we would start buying 5-6 kilos (10 pounds) of tomatoes at once. The smell of those tomatoes in the shopping cart would spread out all over the house... Then we would start waiting for the local heirlooms (yerli domates), a conversation topic among 7-to-70. That was a beautiful harmony of life and society knit around seasons. I can't, I really can't explain to you the unique smell, flavor and texture of those tomatoes and the whole experience.
If you live in the US, you must feel good about your shopping for locally grown tomatoes in season, I do. But this is not the same. Your locally grown tomato in NY is not much different than my locally grown tomato in NC. When I was growing up, shopping local was not cool and nobody that I knew of was sophisticated enough to shop locally for the sake of environment. To us, local meant a different taste, our own taste; and it was not a new taste, it was the same tomoto, the seeds of which had been saved for generations, the same old taste that my grandma had grown up with, on which I started developing my first sense of flavors as a child...
Still, every year before my arrival, my mother and sister will fill up their pantries with the most aromatic and most flavorful local tomatoes they can find. The task gets harder every year though. With industrialization, tomatoes are becoming more and more similar everywhere; they are becoming better looking and tasteless every year... This last summer for example, it was my sister's father-in-law who located and sent to me some authentic heirlooms...
Life is even more difficult in the US. The task of catching the harmony of seasons is an impossible task. For one, tomatoes never leave my sight... They are everywhere I look at... They keep their shape and color at big markets all year around... Yet life is not hopeless! I have a savior... We have a savior... Meyer lemon... Yes folks, meyer lemon is the new tomato... I have not had one single meyer lemon all my life in Turkey, I did not even know of its existence... But you can't imagine the joy I felt when the vegetable guy at our supermarket said that meyer lemon had not arrived yet... It was the same joyful feeling that I used to have when the guy at the farmers market said to my mother "local tomatoes have not arrived yet sister, next week" (yerli daha cikmadi abla, haftaya gelir)...
Now is the meyer lemon season in the US. Before it disappears from the market shelves, we will enjoy the following pasta a couple more times:
2 meyer lemons (can be replaced by 1 regular lemon or 1 lime)
1 cup grated parmesan cheese
3/4 cup pistachio nuts, pan roasted
1 large shallot, minced
1/2 cup cream
2 cups wild arugula
1 pound spaghetti of your choice
1 cup pasta water reserved
Zest the lemons, mix with the grated parmesan cheese. Segment the lemons into a bawl collecting all the juice. Removing all the skin makes a huge difference in this recipe and segmenting is an easy process, just work it out a couple times and you will start having fun. Pan-roast your pistachio on medium-low heat and chop them finely in a food processor, add the lemon segments and juice and make a fine paste. While pasta is boiling, sweat the shallot in a table spoon of olive oil until it is soft. Add cream, heat a little, turn off the heat. Set aside. When the pasta is done, drain and reserve about one cup of boiling water, toss the pasta with the parmesan-zest mix. Stir about 1/2 cup of the reserved boiling water into the pistachio-lemon mix, toss well the pasta with the mix and then with shallot-cream. Salt and pepper to taste. If the sauce is still very thick, add a little more water. Once you get the desired consistency, toss the pasta with roughly chopped arugula. And that is all you need to enjoy a taste from heavens...
Meyer lemon is sweeter than regular lemon with a good touch of tangerine aroma. I have replaced the two meyer lemons in the recipe with one lime, that worked pretty well too. I really like the spicy bouquet of lime...
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