Whether they’re from your backyard garden or the local farmers market, tomatoes are rapidly becoming the main ingredient of meals this time of year.

From Scott Conant, “Bold Italian”

From Joanne Weir, “Wine Country Cooking”

From Amy Goldman, “The Heirloom Tomato — From Garden to Table”

From Drake’s Beach Café, Inverness

In a past life, while working for the government, I developed a theory about brain capacity. After dozens of meetings that all seemed to involve learning how to fill out new, multi-part forms, I noticed a disturbing trend. My ability to conjugate French verbs was diminishing in direct correlation with the acquisition of knowledge about form 7029-A, part 1.

My best friend Claudia and I just returned from a trans-Atlantic crossing on the Queen Mary 2. The captain informed us that the fuel cost for the one-way voyage was $1 million. My gas bill pales in comparison, but I, like everyone else, am feeling the crunch of rising fuel costs across the board. It’s taking big bites out of my grocery bills too.

History, agriculture and the Berbers, Morocco’s earliest indigenous inhabitants, have all joined to produce one of the world’s greatest cuisines.