67 Comments
Oct 3Liked by David Leite

Your writing is all I need sometimes ❤️❤️❤️

Expand full comment
author

I'm verklempt. Thank you, Michelle.

Expand full comment
Oct 3Liked by David Leite

"Mayor of Meatlessopolis"🤣 priceless! You write honestly and I love that.

Expand full comment
author

Ha!!!!! Thank you, Kimitee.

Expand full comment
Sep 26Liked by David Leite

I have non-militant vegetarian friends that I sweat bullets over when they come for dinner. It’s hard to make those vegetarian dishes glamorous or interspersed. Certainly nothing I’d drool over. What we do for friends 😌. Sigh.

Expand full comment
author

Well, the fact they’re peace-loving vegetarians is a huge plus! We have other vegetarian friends who couldn’t be lovlier. And they have made us some pretty impressive dinners. So I’ve learned a lot—and JUST when I was getting a handle on this, they became meat eaters again! @James Bareham

Expand full comment

I hate Kevin.

But I love your writing!

So entertaining and engrossing, I could feel my rage bubble along with you’re cooking tomatoes.

Terrific, wonderful, joyous reading. 🍅

And fuck Kevin.

Expand full comment
author

Thank you, dear Erin!!

Expand full comment

You’re welcome. But I meant *your* in the first comment. 🤦🏼‍♀️

Expand full comment
author

I got what your after. It happens to I all the time.... 😏

Expand full comment

😂😂😂thanks for understanding

Expand full comment

Love, love, love all of this! 🤩🙏🏻 I’ve gotta try that recipe one day too. Thank you!

Expand full comment
author

Thank you, SGIP. And if you make the recipe, let me know!

Expand full comment
Sep 23Liked by David Leite

Brilliant. Reminding me of the spiritual necessity for the unnecessary.

Expand full comment
author

Um, Linda, this is brilliant ☞ The spiritual necessity for the unnecessary.

Expand full comment
Sep 22Liked by David Leite

Wow. Reminds me of my FIL and his ketchup stories. His parents ran a chicken farm in upstate Alabama and he absolutely despised all aspects of it (and enrolled in the Air Forces as soon as he came of age to escape Alabama farm life).

I enjoy growing heirloom tomatoes, so he told me this year how he would be designated weekly to pick all the tomatoes that were getting to the overripe stage and cart them over to the local ketchup factory to sell. Eventually, he ended up working there on a part time basis.

He despises everything there is about ketchup. He refuses to use it, consider it, or acknowledge it as a condiment. He also had his 90th birthday this year, so maybe he knows something the rest of us don't? Hmmmm....

Expand full comment
author

Glory, I'm with your grandfather when it come to tending tomatoes. I think I've written on my Substack how my parents sent me to the local farm in summer to shake the morose depression out of me. (Oh sure, becoming the object of queer-taunting by 30 guys is such a tonic for the soul!)

One of my jobs was tending, stringing, de-suckering, weeding, and picking tomatoes. We would pick hundreds of boxes each week. I couldn't look at a love plum for years after.

Expand full comment
Sep 22Liked by David Leite

Loved this..and all of your writings..this is why I enjoy subscribing..your style of writing and all you that you share with us.

Thank you!

Expand full comment
author

Deborah, you can't know how much your comment means. And it came at the exact right time thank you greatly.

Expand full comment
Sep 22Liked by David Leite

Kevin sounds absolutely obnoxious. Hope your life is still free of him and all his issues. People like that always have issues and insist on inflicting their misery on everyone near them. Oh, and my sister used to make ketchup in tomato season. Good for you!

Expand full comment
author

suzy, we haven't seen him in a long time. And I don't think he misses us, either. Did you enjoy your sister's ketchup?

Expand full comment
Sep 22Liked by David Leite

As usual, I loved this article. That picture of Saint Kevin was absolutely perfect, but calling him a motherfucker, and a FOOD NAZI definitely put the cherries - or baby 'maters in this case, as it's about ketchup - on the top to finish it off!

I've often wanted to call people out on being Food Nazis, but in this day of everything being soooo PC, I figured it was a sure way to get banned off sites.

Not sure WHERE their heads are, but there sure are a LOT of sanctimonious asses out there.

And motherfuckers. 😁 I love a good potty mouth! 😂

Expand full comment
author

Why, thank you, Terry. I'm sure Mama Leite is blanching....

Expand full comment

As are many, many others, no doubt!

And a very happy, belated anniversary to you and The One! 🥳

Expand full comment
Sep 22Liked by David Leite

I love food, love the science of food and love reading recipes. I despise cooking. I’m slow at prep, it’s difficult to come up with recipes that don’t take me hours. 30 minute recipe? Bah! Hour at least!

Your “Blahg” brings me joy! Makes me laugh and brings me hope that one day I will find as much joy in cooking as I do savoring each delicious bite and each word typed on the page. Thank you.

Expand full comment
author

Thank you, Paula. My goal is and always has been to entertain and educate. And in that order. And if all I accomplish is to make someone laugh, then my job is done!

Expand full comment
Sep 22Liked by David Leite

Wow! You nailed exactly what I wish that I'd said!

Expand full comment
author

Ha, thanks, Deborah!

Expand full comment
Sep 22·edited Sep 22Liked by David Leite

I hear you loud and clear, these days. Though I don't despise cooking, due to nerve damage from my shoulders to my fingers. EVERYTHING takes so damn long, and so many things are just beyond me. 😪

Expand full comment
author

Do what you can--no judgment here!

I used to be a food snob. If every single element on the plate wasn't made by the cook, then I'd look down my bulbous nose with derision. Oh, the stupidity of youth! Doctoring up store-bought ingredients is more than fine. It's about ENJOYING whatever time you can't have in the kitchen.

Expand full comment
Oct 6Liked by David Leite

Thanks, David, I appreciate the support. And there are a great number of quality ingredients out there these days, that can be used. I haven't chopped cabbage for years, using coleslaw mix instead. And if I get a hankering for cabbage rolls? I do it the lazy way, and layer it in a roaster. My mom's 70yr old roaster, that easily roasts a 25# bird. And you can bet your bottom dollar that it's FILLED to the top with my "Lazy Man's Cabbage Rolls"! 😬

Expand full comment
author

I love hearing that, Terry. It's no longer about the food as much as it is about the people at the table sharing a meal.

Expand full comment
Sep 22Liked by David Leite

I laughed so hard, I snorted! David, thank you for your prose and that ketchup recipe. And yes, making things from scratch IS the best way to live.

Expand full comment
author

Ah, the sound of success--a snort. Thank you!

Expand full comment

My first but not my last. Thanks

Expand full comment
author

Thank you, Greg.

Expand full comment

A paean to the B tomatoes of the world! Perfect is hella overrated. I’m gonna get me an organic mechanic.

Expand full comment
author

Hella overrated, Lesa. Hella overrated.

Expand full comment

Is your ketchup sugar free 😂😅🤣

Expand full comment
author

Alas, no, Deirdre. It has 6 tablespoons of sugar in it!

Expand full comment
Sep 22Liked by David Leite

Too funny. I, too, talk out loud while cooking to say all the things I should have/or wanted to say. My mind, left to it's own devices, wanders into all the places I crammed memories I want to forget. When I'm cooking....out they come. Most of the time I put a firm rein on my thoughts and refocus on the task at hand - but sometimes (not often enough) I get that eureka moment. Quite gratifying, it leaves me thirsty for more, and so I talk (wander?) when I cook. Good on you. "Not all who wander are lost."-Gandalf

Expand full comment
author

Joan, brava! The One likes to walk in the kitchen when I'm having conversations with myself and say, "Keeping good company there, Dave?"

I'm my memoir, I include my imaginary tête-à-têtes with glitterati--Barbara Streisand, Barbara Walters, Martha Stewart, and so many others. Like you, sometimes I get great ideas what nattering away!

Expand full comment