Shoes, Ships, and Sealing Wax

Unfried green tomatoes

I came home tonight to multiple messages on my answering maching from the doctor and the pharmacy. What a shock--the doctor was using the wrong fax number (now somebody in South Carolina has a billion copies of my allergy medicine script). Of course it took three days for the various health care people to actually talk to each other (as I begged them to do) and straighten it out. During those three days the gunk in my head festered and putrified, and this afternoon I ended up having to go to the doctor anyway because now it's a sinus infection.

Not that I'm bitter.

We have a freeze warning tonight. That is utterly unrelated to my sinuses, but it brings me to topic #2, all those green tomatoes on my vines out back. It's actually been weeks since I had one fully ripen, I guess because September was pretty cool, weather-wise. (Is that right? I'm not a botanist, but I assume there's a temperature component to fruit ripening.) Anyway, I picked the ones that were either the size of a fully done tomato or the few that had started to turn orange this week (when it hit 80 degrees). Now I guess it's time to fire up Google and see what do do with them, besides frying. I am not sufficiently southern to fry green tomatoes.

I also picked all the basil. Since the tomatoes aren't ripe enough for insalta caprese, I guess I'll be making a boatload of pesto. Perhaps I'll really use the mortar and pestle; that might be a productive way to pound out some frustration.