Tomatoes Are Good For You

Did you know that tomatoes will make your teeth sparkling white, your breath minty fresh, your hair shine with new luster and cut your risk for stroke.  Well one out of four is not all that bad.  According to a study based out of Finland, published in the medical journal of Neurology, tomatoes (and especially cooked tomatoes) can reduce your risk for stroke.  The secret ingredient is lycopene.  You can obtain lycopene in other fruits such as grapefruit and papaya, but come on, what would you rather have, spaghetti or grapefruit?

The study followed 1,031 men between the ages of 42 and 61.  The study followed these men for 12 years and was intended to determine if other dietary items affected stroke risk.  I am inherently skeptical of longitudinal studies.   I mean really, are you going to remember what you ate last week and in what quantity?  I have trouble remembering what I ate for dinner yesterday unless it was spaghetti.  Hey, maybe they are on to something. If you want to read more about the study, the link is below.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444897304578044680394134430.html?mod=ITP_personaljournal_0

I always look for news items that affirm my narrow view of the world.  And if scientists say that tomatoes are good for you, then it must be true (especially if I can read it on the internet).  I was devastated when the nutritional police came out years ago to say that coffee was bad for you.  Then they changed their minds and it was good for you, then it was bad for you. Now, I only read stuff that tells me that whatever I am eating or drinking is good for me.  I sleep much better at night this way.  Sweet Tomato says I take the reputed health benefits of red wine way too seriously.  As if I needed any excuse to drink red wine.  As my dear Great Grand Father used to say, “Water is over rated, it just rusts your pipes”.  He lived to be 96, ate lots of tomatoes and drank large quantities of red wine.

Summer Culinary Delights

During the hot days of August and September, the tomato harvest becomes a daunting task as Sweet Tomato and I try to use tomatoes into nearly every meal we enjoy.  Here are two easy and really good recipes.  And of course, they use tomatoes.

Tomato Frittata

I make frittatas all of the time.  I generally cook them as a way to use up left overs.  If you get creative, there isn’t much in the left over category that can’t be used in a frittata.  Here is a recipe that relies on the San Marzano Redorta.  The San Marzano Redorta is a wonderful plum heirloom tomato from Italy.  It is large and meaty with little or no internal liquid.  It is great for pizzas and frittatas because as it heats up in the oven, the tomato does not cook out much liquid. This means you can use these tomatoes fresh off the vine without roasting or drying them first.

Mix 6 to 10 eggs in a bowl.  The amount of eggs depends upon how much frittata you want.  If you have some cream, add a tablespoon or two.  If not, don’t worry it is not required.  Add salt and pepper to the eggs and wisk the eggs until combined.  You will need an oven safe skillet.  I use a 12 inch skillet that has a normal metal body. Many recipes tell you to use a non-stick skillet, but I have never felt comfortable putting non-stick skillets in the oven.  I have more cleanup afterward, but other than that, a regular metal skillet works just fine.

Heat olive oil in the skillet.  Add some course chopped garlic and some thin sliced onions.  I use a lot of garlic, probably more than you or most normal people would, so use an amount of garlic you are comfortable with.  The key thing here is not to let it burn.  If you let your garlic burn, throw it out and start over.  Burnt garlic is nasty.  Add the onions.  I use sweet or red onions (whatever I have at the time – I am not picky) and sometimes use green onions if that is all I have.  After the onions have begun to caramelize, add the eggs to the skillet.  This next part gets a little tricky and takes practice.  Stir the eggs over medium heat as if you were making scrambled eggs.  I have this really nifty non-stick spatula that lets me move the eggs around in the skillet so they cook evenly.  If you let the eggs just set there, they will burn on the bottom and be runny on top.  Once you get to a consistency that is just short of true scramble eggs, remove the skillet from the heat.  The eggs should be runny, but just starting to get some solid egg chunks.

Now cover the frittata with sliced San Marzano Redorta tomatoes.  The tomato slices should be about a quarter of an inch thick.  Tomato slices with skin should be put on the frittata skin side down.  I forgot to tell you to heat your oven to 350 degrees, so go do that now.  When the oven is at 350 degrees, put the frittata in for 8 to 10 minutes.  The eggs should be cooked through, but the tomatoes are just beginning to cook.  You can remove the frittata at this point, let it cool and eat it out of the skillet or move it to a platter. 

However, if you want to “kick it up a notch”, set the oven rack just under the broiler and turn your oven to broil.  Sprinkle parmesan over the frittata.  If I am really enterprising, I will roast some panko bread crumbs in a little bit of butter and then sprinkle them on the frittata along with the parmesan.  Place the frittata under the broiler. 

DO NOT WALK AWAY!! 

Broiling the frittata can take 30 seconds to a minute or so.  Leave the oven open and watch the frittata. The parmesan (and bread crumbs) should be browned, but not blackened.  You may have to move/turn the skillet while it is under the broiler to brown the top evenly.  Here is what the end product looks like.

A few other tips.  Salt and pepper the finished frittata to taste.  If you have any left over marinara, ladling some over the frittata is a great addition.  And for those of you who think you have asbestos fingers, use oven mitts when handling the skillet.  It is tough to eat frittata with burnt fingers.

Tomatoes with Grapes, Figs, Asiago Cheese, Sausage and Lettuce

This one is really easy.  Spread some lettuce onto a platter. We use garden lettuce or the store bought packages.  Both seem to work equally as well.  Layer with sliced fresh garden tomatoes.  If you don’t have quality heirloom, fresh, garden tomatoes, this will not be nearly as good. Spread some grapes and figs around the platter.  Add some thinly sliced cooked sausage.  We use sweet Italian sausage generally of the left over variety.  Use a cheese peeler to create some thin slices of Asiago.  Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil.  We generally have a few slices of crusty bread as well, and of course some wine.

The tomatoes and figs were picked from our garden that day.  I defy anyone to be able to order a salad like this at any restaurant!

Seafood Pasta with Heirloom Tomatoes Fra Diavolo Sauce

I have been reviewing my extensive collection of cookbooks for recipes that can be used with my burgeoning tomato harvest.  I am almost as obsessed with cookbooks as I am with tomatoes, much to Sweet Tomato’s (my wife of many years) consternation about cookbooks piled all over the house and garage.   I share Rosie Tomato’s desire to finally use some of those recipes rather than day dream about what they might have tasted like (if only I had prepared them).  This recipe comes from “The Heirloom Tomato Cookbook”.  This cookbook was originally published in 2006 to promote the Kendall-Jackson Wine Center in Napa Valley.  Despite being a promotion vehicle for Kendall-Jackson, it is a great cookbook with lots of information about heirloom tomatoes – from history, to selection, techniques and of course tomato recipes.  It is one of my favorites.

This recipe (Seafood Pasta with Heirloom Tomatoes Fra Diavolo Sauce) comes from page 84.  “Fra Diavolo” translates in Italian as “Brother Devil” (brother as in monk).  It gets its name from the red pepper flakes included in the ingredients.  There is a story behind my love of hot (really hot) peppers and condiments that I may get to someday.  Suffice it to say that Sweet Tomato does not have the same degree of tolerance for hot peppers as I do.  When I read one teaspoon of red pepper flakes in a recipe, my eyes fool me and I see two or three (well maybe four or five) teaspoons. As a consequence, whenever I use fresh chilies or red pepper flakes in a recipe, I must check with Sweet Tomato first. She is the boss after all and it is a rule she created so she wouldn’t be forced to fix her own dinner because mine was too hot to eat (for her, not for me).

 The dish consists of the following:

4 tablespoons of olive oil, 6 garlic cloves (crushed), 1.5 pounds of heirloom tomatoes (they recommend plum, but any good tasting red heirloom tomato will do), salt, 4 or 5 teaspoons of red pepper flakes (ok, it only calls for 1 teaspoon if you are a wimp), linguine pasta, 8 ounces small shrimp (I used medium shrimp and a lot more than 8 ounces), 8 ounces of bay scallops and 2 tablespoons of flat-leaf parsley. 

If you can’t figure out how the ingredients go together, then you aren’t much of a cook or you don’t have any imagination.  If you really do want the directions, buy the book, or comment on the blog and I will include the cooking directions.  Below are pictures of the dish.  There were actually two versions, one with one teaspoon of red pepper flakes and one with more than that.  It turned out really good and was great with Zinfandel.

This was the hot one.  If you look closely you can just see the fork beginning to melt.



This Is Why I Grow Tomatoes

My wife, Sweet Tomato, made a tomato salad with dinner last night.  The tomatoes, Cory’s Grandpa (orange & yellow), Michael Pollan (green) and Abraham Lincoln (red) were picked from my garden about an hour before dinner.  Sweet Tomato laid down a bed of lettuce and arugula, sliced the tomatoes and arranged them on the plate.  She added green scallions and a drizzle of olive oil.  The result was a simple but incomparable dish that rivals or exceeds anything you can obtain at an expensive restaurant. But wait, it gets better; open a bottle of red wine, cut some crusty bread, and dine in the company of the loveliest girl in the world. 

It doesn’t get much better than this.

But Darlin, we can’t eat flowers

My wife, Sweet Tomato, and also sometimes known as Darlin Girl thought it would be nice to grow flowers in one of the raised beds I have traditionally used to grow tomatoes.  Now the garden and growing tomatoes has been my passion and responsibility for many, many years.  I am the one that pours over seed catalogs in the winter, digs three foot deep trenches with a pick axe to remove clay that is the naturally occurring soil in San Diego and spends hours caring for my tomato plants through the summer.  Sweet Tomato maintains an herb garden conveniently located at the edge of the raised beds in our garden.  She helps me can tomatoes during the harvest and generally is supportive of my obsession. 

So when Sweet Tomato brought up the subject of growing flowers instead of tomatoes, I was understandably aghast at the thought of flowers replacing tomatoes in my garden.  In the early years of our marriage, I thought I was the boss.  When our children were born, I realized I was not the boss, and never had been.  I saw the boss’ job, and truth be told, I didn’t want it.  So, after my obligatory wailing and gnashing of teeth, I asked Sweet Tomato what kind of flowers she wanted to plant and where she wanted to plant them.  That is when Sweet Tomato added insult to injury and whipped out one of my own seed catalogs, turned to the back page and showed me several flower garden offerings for butterflies, bumblebees, hummingbirds and songbirds.  I was mortified.  One of my own seed catalogs used against me, the indignity of it.

Sweet Tomato decided that she would like the butterfly habitat which we ordered from John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds catalog.  To quote from the catalog’s evil propaganda: “…colorful mixture of happy summer butterfly camps full of yummy nectar and friendly host plants.”  ‘Yummy nectar’, what is ‘yummy nectar’, as if I was going to eat the dang flowers. The catalog goes on with a whole list of flowers, none of which I had ever heard of before.   So we ordered the butterfly flower mix and planted it this spring.  I had some sunflower seeds lying around, so I planted those as well.

Here is the flower mix we planted.

Here is the flower bed in June, before the sunflowers sprouted.

Here is the flower bed in July with sunflowers beginning to tower over the original flowers.

As much as I hate to admit it, the flowers do add beauty to the garden.  Sweet Tomato and I especially enjoy watching the small birds and finches in the evening that flock to the flower habitat.

Papi’s 2012 Lineup: Third Flight

Dagma’s Perfection

This is new to the lineup this year.  It is a bi-colored heirloom tomato and is described as very picturesque. Tomatoes are 10 to 12 ounces with hints of tropical fruit.  I doubt the tropical fruit part, but the pictures of this beauty could fool you into thinking you were eating a papaya or a pineapple.  My main reason for trying this tomato is to compare it to my perennial favorite, Cory’s Grandpa (see my blog Papi’s 2012 Lineup: Second Flight for the story behind Cory’s Grandpa).

Abraham Lincoln

This tomato is new to the lineup this year.  Old Abe has been around for a long time.  The tomato that is. 

“Abraham Lincoln’ was introduced in 1923 by the W. H. Buckbee seed company of Rockford, Ill., which named the tomato in honor of the state’s favorite son. It was released without much fanfare, but over the years it has proved itself to be one of the great tomato classics that happily survived the big shift to hybrids during the 1940s. After the demise of the Buckbee firm, the tomato was continued by R. H. Shumway of Randolph, Wis.”

Advertised as an abundant provider with 6 to 10 ounce tomatoes. Good texture with higher amount of acid, but also tempered with sweetness.

Zapotec

Zapotec has been in the lineup before.  This is a great tasting tomato with thick flesh great for making sauces and canning.  Zapotec is an heirloom from Mexico and is reputed to be the progenitor of the Italian heirloom tomato Costoluto Genovese.  According to myth, legend or history, the Spanish Conquistadors brought this tomato back from their conquest of Mexico and introduced it to Europe.  The Costoluto Genovese is renowned for its great sauces and taste.  Zapotec is every bit as good and in my opinion is better looking than the Costoluto Genovese.

Copia

Copia has been in the lineup before.  It is also a bi-colored tomato.  It is advertised as a stabilized cross between a Green Zebra and Marvel Stripe.  The tomatoes are 10 to 12 ounces and the tomato was named for the Copia American Center for Food and Wine in Napa California.  I had the good fortune to visit the Copia Center several years ago with my wife (Sweet Tomato) before it closed in bankruptcy in 2008.  The Copia is every bit as tasty as it is beautiful. 

Papi's 2012 Line-up: Second Flight

Tomande

I have planted this tomato for several years.  It is a very good producer and has good to excellent flavor. I generally pick tomatoes I have not grown before for their names or if they look good in the catalogs.  I am soooo a sucker for tomato catalogs, but that is a blog I have to write in the winter.  If a tomato is going to stay in the line-up it has to first and foremost taste good.  Second, it should be a good producer. It has to have more than six or seven tomatoes on it.  Lastly, if it is disease resistant, especially for powdery mildew, that is a good thing.  Tomande meets all three of these requirements.  It has the flavor and looks of an heirloom, but with the yield and disease resistance of a modern hybrid.

Matina

This tomato is new to the line-up this year.  According to the seed catalogs’ propaganda, early bearing, intense flavor, potato-leaved with large clusters of abundant tomatoes.  It is an heirloom from Germany.  I picked it because it looked pretty, I liked the name and it was an early producer.  Then I went and planted it in the second flight, go figure. 

San Marzano Redorta

I planted this tomato for the first time in 2011.  I had planted the smaller San Marzano tomatoes before with mixed success.  For those of you not that familiar with the San Marzano, it is the premier tomato grown in Italy for making marinara or paste.  Take a trip to an Italian specialty grocery or deli and you will pay a fortune for canned San Marzano tomatoes from Italy.  Now don’t get me wrong, the San Marzano tomatoes from Italy really do taste great.  I just feel they are not worth their lofty price tag.  The San Marzano Redorta is an heirloom from Tuscany, Italy.  It is named for a mountain in Bergamo, Italy.  This tomato is a San Marzano on steroids.  It is big, 7 to 8 inches in length, meaty with almost no juice and all meat.  You cook a couple of these babies down for marinara sauce and you don’t have to worry about your sauce being thin.  We canned a bunch of these last year.  I make a very bright marinara with the San Marzano Redorta we canned in 2011 when I make pizza.  I make a very good pizza and these tomatoes make a great marinara.

This is one of my fantastic, pizzas with San Marzano Redorta tomates made into a marinara for the pizza.

Cory’s Grandpa

This tomato has a lot going for it. It has been in the line-up for years, and will always be there.  It is a good producer of large beef steak tomatoes that are multicolored with beautiful coloring of yellow, green and red (think rainbow, but only prettier).  It tastes absolutely fabulous with lots of juice and flavor.  You put some mozzarella on one of these tomatoes, some basil and a sprinkle of olive oil you have a meal that will not leave you hungry.  But the best thing about this tomato is that it has a great story. 

In years past, one of my daughters dated a young man by the name of Cory.  My daughter and Cory have long since parted ways, but when they were going together, this young man knew of my passion for tomatoes and brought me seeds from his Grandpa’s prized tomato.  When Cory gave me the seeds, he recounted this beautiful, multicolored tomato that his Grandpa had grown for years.  It was prized within the family and treasured for its beauty and taste.  I operate on the premise that talk is cheap, show me what you got.  The first year I planted this tomato, I planted 2 or 3 of them. It was a good thing, because only one made it (I wasn’t as talented as I am now and my tomato growing was hit or miss).  This tomato was so beautiful and so tasty, it was a hit and favorite.  Cory’s Grandpa has passed on, but his tomato will live in my garden for as long as I am growing tomatoes.

Vorlon Update

This is a very good tasting tomato.  With a name like Vorlon and the story behind it, this could stay in the line up.

Papi Tomato's 2012 Line Up - First Wave

The first tomato in the 2012 line up is the Michael Pollan

This is a returning tomato to the line up first planted in 2011. It is named after the famous author, Michael Pollan, known for his books on food, gardening and environmentalism. The plant was very prolific with beautiful green tomatoes of smaller size and great flavor. During the harvest of 2011, we had used up all of our canning jars and we had so many of the Michael Pollan tomatoes that needed to be used, that we made a big batch of green pasta sauce.  The sauce ended up tasting great, but looked kind of funny.

Here is a picture of the Michael Pollan tomatoes from last year.

The second tomato in the 2012 line up is the Vorlon.

For those of you that are not sci fi aficionados, the Vorlons were a race of alien people populating the universe in the Babylon 5 science fiction series.  I loved that show, but then I love nearly all science fiction shows.  I saw this tomato at Tomatomania in the spring and had to try it.  I hope it does well as I would love to add it to my tomato line up in future years.

The third tomato in the line up is the Black Seaman. 

This is another tomato from Tomatomania. The name of this tomato is so NOTpolitically correct that I had to try it.  Political correctness is not my strong suit.

The fourth tomato in the the first wave was supposed to be a Brandywine.  It was a gift from my daughter.  As it began to grow, it was obvious, it was not a Brandywind.  It turns out to be a container tomato that is small and compact in size.  I am not a fan of container tomatoes, but more on that in a future post.  It is just now starting to show some red tomatoes.  They better taste good, or it will get replaced in the line up.

I expect to have approximately 20 different tomato plants for the 2012 tomato growing season.  Watch for future blog posts on the rest of the 2012 tomato line up.

Papi Tomato

Michael Pollan - It is not just an author, but also a tomato.

I have always delighted in growing exotic, heirloom tomatoes. Especially the kind you never find in a store. Some do well, some do not. Some taste great, some are barley edible. All of them are fun to grow and make the wait for tomatoes exciting and ripe with anticipation. This year I have 24 different tomatoes in my back yard garden. Some of these I have grown before and continue to grow because of their combination of production and taste. One I have not grown before is the “Michael Pollan”.

According to anniesannuals.com:
'Michael Pollan' is an odd shaped mutant! (The tomato that is.) Egg shaped fruits are yellow with green stripes & some have little “nubbins” on the ends. Related to ‘Green Zebra’ but with a milder taste & a good amount of sweetness. Very popular in taste tests. Plus the bloom on this variety is reported to be quite showy. Nice! Named after the amazing author & teacher -whose books we highly recommend.



Michael Pollan is a famous author dealing with health, the environment and food’s influence on both. He has been immortalized with his own heirloom tomato with the nom de plume “Michael Pollan”.

The tomato also has a reputation for blossom end rot. Blossom end rot is generally caused by a lack of calcium in the soil and irregular watering. The lack of calcium can be due to poor watering practices or by a basic lack of calcium in the soil. I always plant my tomatoes with ground up egg shells and make sure I use a good fertilizer as well. I also hand water with an eye to temperature and weather. I got my “Michael Pollan” at the Tomato Mania event at the Quail Botanical Gardens. If you have never attended this event in the spring, I highly recommend it. The plant went into the ground on April 2nd. As of June 1st, the plant was nearly 5 feet tall. It has an abundance of blossoms. I mean lots and lots of blossoms. I am hopefull for a bountiful harvest and the tomatoes taste as good as their reputation. In any event, it has been fun to grow and anticipation runs high for some great tasting tomatoes.

Michael Pollan with multitude of blossoms.

It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it.

Over the years that I have been keeping a garden, I have never made an effort to plant or maintain a winter garden. Not being much of a morning person (my wife and children will certainly attest to that), I do most of my gardening work in the evening after work. That doesn’t work very well in the winter when it is dark by the time I get home. What I do work on during the winter months is the improvement of my garden’s soil.

In real-estate, the mantra when buying a house is “location, location, location”. When growing a garden and especially growing tomatoes the equivalent advice about gardening is that “it’s the soil, soil, soil”. In San Diego, unless you are extremely fortunate or you live where someone else has amended the soil, lurking under that first few inches of topsoil is the nastiest, hardpan clay that when mixed with the right amount of water is nearly as good as cement. For the untutored, tomatoes do not grow well in cement.

I have been growing tomatoes for a number of years, and when friends and acquaintances find out about my avocation they ask what are the “secrets” for growing good tomatoes. I can talk to them about buying plants or growing from seed, what fertilizers to use, how to spot insect or disease infestation, but in the end, it always comes down to what is the condition of your soil. Sometime this winter, try this experiment. Put on some boots or heavy soled shoes, get some gloves, a shovel and pick a spot in your garden where you would normally plant tomatoes. Dig a trench approximately 6” to 8” across and 18” to 24” deep for a length of about 2’-3’.

Generally, and certainly in 99% of San Diego back yards, you will dig to a depth of 4” to 6” and you will begin to encounter a hard substrate. This is that nasty clay I spoke of earlier. You will find that your shovel does not cut through the clay as it is too dense and hard. At this point you will need a pick axe. I didn’t tell you about the pick axe earlier as I did not want to scare you. A quick note about tomato characteristics is that a fully developed tomato plant will have a root system that will extend 2.5’ to 3.5’ below the tomato plant. Roots will extend in a rough circle approximately 18” to 24” around the plant. Now I have a question for you. If you could not penetrate the soil of your garden below 6” to 8” with a shovel, how do you expect your tomato plant to do so?

The best advice I can give to anyone contemplating growing tomatoes is to enrich and amend your soil to a depth of at least 24” and 36” if possible. I speak from experience when I tell you this is hard, back breaking sweaty work whether you do it yourself or hire someone to amend the soil. The bottom line is that there is no better way to ensure good tomatoes than improving the soil they grow in. In future blog posts, I will provide some tips about amending your garden’s soil. Remember, “it’s the soil, soil, soil”.

Tomato Plant Timing or "When do I see "red". By Papi Tomato

This is a Sprite.

First of all, I wanted to thank Rosie Tomato for the opportunity to fill in while she recovers from her foot surgery. Sources close to Rosie tell me she is recovering well with a prognosis for full recovery.

My first post will deal the timing for planting tomatoes. Most varieties of tomatoes will mature and fruit in approximately 90 days. There are some fast developing varieties for colder climates that mature and fruit in 60 days or less. Other varieties that can be north of 100 days, but as a rule of thumb, you can count on 90 days as a good estimate. Any good seed catalog will provide the days for a particular tomato variety to mature.

Rosie planted most of her tomato plants from mid March to Mid April (think Clairemont Garden Show). If you add 90 days to those planting intervals you start seeing red (as in red tomatoes) sometime around mid June to mid July. However, there are other matters to consider. Soil temperature and ambient temperature in March and April are not what they are in the summer, but the temperatures are sufficient to allow tomato plants to grow, albeit more slowly. Also, this summer in San Diego was gloomy and cool. This will also affect the amount of time tomatoes will take to mature and fruit.

Most of my tomato plants went into the garden around the June 1st. I started seeing ‘red’ on some plants mid August with good overall production at the end of August and first part of September. As of this post (October 5th) I still have two or three tomato plants producing tomatoes. The plants look rather ‘long in the tooth’, but they will maintain tomatoes for some time if you continue to water. I was able to pick over two pounds of red San Marzano roma tomato this past Sunday to make spaghetti sauce. Yesterday I picked nearly a pound of Sprite, Fiorentino and Black Pearls.

Normally, I plant about 1/3 of my tomatoes April 1st, May 1st and June 1st respectively. This usually gives me three months of garden tomatoes for consumption, cooking and gifts. The photos below were taken in my garden toward the end of September. As you can see, there is still a lot of ‘red’ there.

Miscellaneous plants.

This is a Fiorentino

Black Pearl (I am so a fan of Pirates to the Caribbean)

Introducing my Guest Blogger!

I will be unable to tend garden for the next couple weeks due to foot surgery and consequently, it is time for me to hand over blog writing to my very worthy proxy. He has over 30 years of lawn and garden care experience and approximately half of that time has been spent growing and tending heirloom tomatoes, peppers, and other assorted vegetables. His other specialties include care of citrus and avocado trees and cymbidiums (orchids). He has successfully amended poor clay soil into fertile vegetable beds, keeps a seed library to continue the propagation of old heirloom lines, and cooks gourmet cuisine from home-grown fruits and vegetables.

Welcome, Papi Tomato! I look forward to your insightful contributions!