Consuming the Sun, Touching the Earth.

• Author: DUMANOSKI, DIANNE
• Position: Vegetable gardening

ONE MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND SEVERAL years ago, a friend who had dropped in unexpectedly stood at the edge of our vegetable garden watching my husband Carlo turn soil. He looked on with a bemused expression for some time. When he finally gave voice to his thoughts, he observed that it would be definitely easier and probably cheaper to buy organic vegetables at Bread and Circus. By the narrow calculus of cost and efficiency, he was, of course, absolutely right. But it was stunning to hear the rich and complex and sometimes even profound experience of food in our lives reduced to groceries.

In this hyperactive, harried culture that brought the world fast food, I sometimes think of our gardening and cooking as a form of resistance. My husband and I, we specialize in slow food. An August meal begins with planting a seed in February followed by weeks of tending tiny seedlings under grow lights in the basement. By late spring, the burgeoning eggplant, pepper, and tomatoes graduate to larger pots and the cold frame outside. The ritual of setting in the sturdy six-foot-tall tomato cages and the final planting takes place around Memorial Day. Throughout the long days of summer we harvest the early crops, cook a great deal, share our abundance with friends as often as possible, and cultivate the organic virtue of patience along with the rows of green beans and chard.

Finally, in early August after summer has turned the corner, the birds have gone quiet, and the days are getting shorter, the time has finally come for the ultimate slow food experience. If heaven exists, it cannot surpass a languid summer afternoon spent in the shade of the screen house with friends sharing a plate of slow-roasted tomatoes along with goat cheese and crusty bread. Without question, the taste falls into the rare died-and-went-to-heaven category--intense and exquisite as if Carlo had managed to capture all of the sweet goldenness of summer in the small, wrinkled halves. Offhand, I can think of only three other tastes as equally memorable--vintage port, fresh truffles, and chanterelle mushrooms right out of the woods.

From taste comparisons, we have determined that the very best tomato for slow-roasting is an heirloom variety that the seed catalogues sell as "super Italian paste." It is a large, pointed plum tomato of the San Marzano type with an orangy color and distinct yellow shoulders. When fresh, it tastes rather ordinary and, in fact, is less flavorful than other plum...