why tnbc

Ah. Tomatoes ‘n’ blue cheese. What’s not to love about tomatoes? And what’s not to hate about blue cheese?

When I was a child, my parents nicknamed me tomatoes (or the Arabic equivalent of that, Tamatim) because I devoured the identity-ambiguous fruit/vegetable with religious zeal.

I ate tomatoes whole. I ate tomatoes chopped. I ate them under cheese and thought them great on top. (Don’t worry. I’ll discontinue the Dr. Seuss rhyming shortly). They come in big and small. They are messy to eat. They’re both sweet and bitter — oh, they’re such a treat! Of course every now and then, I may want to die, when I find a tomato that’s too soft or too dry. But, all in all, I feel that I can say, that if I had to eat a vegetable every living day, I would not hesitate — a tomato would be in my mouth, before it hit myplate.

Blue cheese, on the other hand (please pause, while I contain my nausea). I can write an ode to blue cheese, or better yet, a eulogy. I never could see eye to eye with blue cheese. Now you may beg to differ, but I’ll have to ask you to beg on a different blog because, like many cities in California, this spot has zero tolerance for struggling individuals who lack fashion sense.

But I digress.

Why the tomatoes n’ blue cheese, you ask? Because I’m (occasionally) a patriotic, flag-waving citizen of the US of A. (Get it: red, white and blue? Tomatoes ‘n’ blue cheese? Oh, forget it.) For me, tomatoes n’ blue cheese represents a mix of the pretty and the ugly, the right and the left, the new and the old, the hot and the cold. (I know. My rhyming has hit an all-new low. How shall I ever redeem myself?)

In other words, I think healthy debate is tight, and ideological, imaginative, entertaining tug-of-wars can sometimes lead to healthy communities (when they’re not breeding identity crises).

So here’s to unopinionated opinions. Here’s to being conflicted on every international and domestic conflict. Here’s to savoring the delicious and rejecting the repulsive. Here’s to tomatoes ‘n’ blue cheese.

Disclaimer: Despite the (dis)tasteful title, this is not a cooking blog. If I could cook, I promise I’d share the wealth. Until I can throw random ingredients together to make fettucine alfredo in 5 minutes, keep a story in your heart. Or look up recipes on youtube. Contrary to (my mother’s) popular opinion, they are quite legit.