I LIVE here

An article on the tomatoes in the Berkeley Bowl in this week's Dining Out section. Oh god, the mouth waters -- and I live here! (Well, not quite in the Berkeley Bowl proper, but damn close to it!) Wheeee!

The author is clearly in as much slack-jawed, foodie-nirvana, dumbfounded ecstasy as I was the first time I went there. To wit:

You can't help it. The sun is beating down outside like some kind of Provencal demon and here amid the sawdust-strewn aisles of this bland, low-lying store, there are 20 - 20! - varieties of heirloom tomatoes stacked, strewn and otherwise arrayed, taunting you, the defenseless shopper.

Come hither. For $2.49 a pound.

Welcome to Northern California, ye defenseless New Yorker.

Their enumeration of the types of tomatoes available is worth reproducing in full (educational value, NYT, educational value):

The Pink Zebra looked like a cross between a Fuji apple and a peach; it was sweet, not acidic, with deep pink flesh inside. The Cherokee Purple was deep vermilion with dark green streaks on the outside. Cut open, it looked like a hunk of raw meat, with firm flesh and little juice. The Lemon Boy was pale on the inside, tart and less intense than the others. The Beefmaster looked like a gnarly pincushion on the outside; inside it had deep red flesh and burst with flavor.

I also tried the Wilgenberg hothouse, the Miyashita Nursery, the Momotaro, Big Beef, Dr. Wych's Yellow, Zebras (striped bright lime on the outside, kiwi-colored on the inside), Pineapple Stripe (squat and small), Mountain Delight (orange shaped and deep yellow in color) and the plum-colored Black Prince.

Whew.

And somehow, I've managed to miss this ... I think it's been my fast-paced weekends of late, or the fact that there are beautiful heirlooms in slices at one of the sandwich bars at Google, or my avoidance of the 'Bowl on weekends because of its craziness (which even the New Yorker acknowledges: "Such passion is not uncommon at the Berkeley Bowl, where the carts bang into one another in the narrow byways, even on a weekday afternoon. And this, I was assured, was a particularly calm hour." I think this weekend, I need to get back to the 'Bowl and get me some tomatoes. Yummmm ...