It’s a rainy afternoon from where I’m writing. It’s only eight degrees outside but I’m determined to think of summer. What better lunch, then, than a tomato salad?
Here is my tomato. It’s had a hard life being imported from somewhere into my refrigerator, but I’m not a snob when it comes to aesthetics. Of course, this would be a different post altogether if I had my mother’s multicoloured heritage tomatoes at hand. But we make do with what we can.
Let me take this opportunity to introduce to you a tiny piece of steel that makes eating tomatoes so much easier: the tomato huller. 
Rather than simply slicing off the top of the tomato and discarding it, or using a knife to cut into the top and leaving a tomato slice that looks like a victim of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, this little tool quickly and neatly removes the tough bits of tomato attaching the stem to the flesh without wasting all that tomato-y goodness.
So first you remove the stem. Just pop that sucker right off.
Then take the huller and dig the little spokes into the area around the stem-hole.
Ease the huller around the edge of the stem-hole and work it underneath, like an ice cream scoop.
Then just scoop away the icky parts. Tada.
Makes it easy to slice up your tomato, lay it, salted and peppered, on a plate with some fresh basil leaves, and drizzle it with a smidgen of vintage balsamic vinegar (because we all know how much I love vinegar).
You can see how that lovely top slice didn’t go to waste.
I grated a wee bit of asiago cheese on top and ate it with a roll (which I baked myself!) to sop up the juices. Mmm.
Ali Does It Herself 
