Tomatoes Unhinged: Oliveto's Paul Canales (and his beret)…

Oliveto's Paul Canales (and his beret) go to the market to pick up 1000 pounds of tomatoes for Oliveto's annual series of tomato dinners, but it's the other prepwork that is the stuff of champions: "To prepare, Mr. Canales and his team began a week before the dinners by tasting 90 varieties from local farms, grading each fruits' sweetness, acidity, texture, color, whether the fruit was better for cooking or eating raw, and 'gel content' ... Mr. Canales takes some jibes from his staff about his subsequent upset stomach and bad mood -- a state hard to imagine on the upbeat, 48-year-old, 5-foot-7-inch skateboarding enthusiast who strides around his restaurant energetically and sports a Basque beret. 'Yes, we felt sick afterwards,' he says. 'But no, we're not sick of tomatoes yet.'" [WSJ]