Yes, there are tomato-shaped objects available year-round at your nearest grocery store. These items are even called "tomatoes," and they do bear a strong visual resemblance to the real deal.
But they are not tomatoes. Tomatoes appear in July or possibly August, the fat lip of the year, and they hang around only through the throaty part of summer, the hot-damp days and firefly nights. Come fall, they vanish, replaced by pasty doppelgängers.
I know my summer has been too full when I've forgotten about tomatoes. And lately, alas, that's been the case: I can't recall a summer in the last eight years in which I have not moved house or moved states or faced an insect infestation or changed jobs had a child, or sometimes several of these things at once.
This summer is a baby summer, but I did remember tomatoes yesterday, stealing out of the house to head to the farmer's market down the road.
I bought four. They were exorbitantly expensive and not particularly prepossessing, moderate globes of yellow and pink and red. I will eat them plain and messy, not bothering with the knife.
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