In her intimate, story-driven cookbook Food Is a Feeling, chef and author Carla Lalli frames cooking and eating as self-care, specifically after the end of her 24-year marriage. In this essay and recipe, Lalli explores the textural and emotional significance of ripe tomatoes.
Tomato (Gut) Feeling
My ex didn’t like tomatoes, especially raw ones. It’s the gooey guts, he said.
It became a running joke on my side of the family: a full-blooded Italian woman forced to decry the literal fruits of her Neapolitan ancestors’ labor. From a Mediterranean diet perspective, the pillars of our union were doomed.
Tomatoes have never been gross to me, not in the slightest. But out of love and understanding and a desire to please him, I all but banished them from our table. Over time, I internalized the particularities of my lover’s palate, drank the anti-tomato propaganda juice, and saw them as I imagined he did. The cherry tomatoes in my mom's rustic summer sauce cooked hot and fast till they burst and became saggy, gaggy, fruit blimps. A platter of multicolored heirlooms morphed into obscenely gelatinous seed packets tethered to soft, boneless flesh. A crinkly broiled plum tomato served with roast chicken or grilled fish, intended to slip onto the fork with each bite — well, who would eat that? This was our forbidden fruit.
If I found myself alone in my parents’ kitchen with harvest from their tomato plants, I’d sprinkle coarse salt on a wedge and slurp the warm juices right from their fruity cenote. The seeds are slippery, and the amniotic situation they’re suspended in is heavier than normal water; it’s like aloe, like lake water, like whatever makes seaweed so slick. I get it — tomato innards are not for everyone, and having that treat in private minimizes the chances of grossing anyone out. But those textures, that anatomy, those fragrances, they are very much for me.
The summer after we separated, I did what I wanted, I ate what I liked, and I started to remember who I was. I let myself fall back in love with tomatoes, and by extension, accepted myself for the tomato slut that I am. I ate cherry tomatoes out of the pint container like berries. I left the B out of the BLT and squeezed thick-sliced beefsteaks to death between two slices of mayo-soaked bread. On a Facebook Marketplace adventure on Long Island, I went full paisan and sweet-talked the buyer’s mom into giving me a jar of her homemade passata, dozens of which were neatly stacked in her garage but destined for my skillet.
It was tomato monomania. A tomato massacre. Guts were spilled. Shirts were stained. My tomato gluttony was a petty triumph in a summer otherwise full of loss. On market day, an array of skin-sniffed, hand-selected tomatoes lined my produce tray, full of potential, each one a cheap creative thrill, and all mine. To be clear — being alone was a thrill. An unapologetically messy, pulpy, seedy, sweet, juicy thrill.
Tomato and Cheddar Forever
Author: Carla Lalli
Prep Time: 15 min
Cook Time: 29 min
Calories: 355 calories
Servings: 4-6
Ingredients
- 2 pounds tomatoes, any types and sizes
- Kosher salt; freshly ground pepper
- Sherry vinegar, for seasoning
- Extra-virgin olive oil, for drizzling
- 4 ounces sharp cheddar, grated on the large holes of a box grater
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 cup panko bread crumbs
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon sweet paprika
Directions
- Slice the tomatoes ¼ inch thick if large and in half if small, and arrange on a platter. Season with salt and pepper, then douse with a few splashes of vinegar and drizzle generously with oil. Set the tomatoes aside to marinate at room temperature for up to 2 hours.
- Line a large plate or baking sheet with paper towels. Heat a large cast-iron or nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add half of the cheddar in an even layer. Use a silicone spatula to tuck the edges in. Cook until the cheese melts and is golden brown, rotating the skillet as needed to cook evenly, 9 to 12 minutes. Season with pepper.
- Use a thin spatula to lift up the cheddar frico, peeling it off the pan, and transfer it to the prepared plate. If it breaks into smaller pieces, it’s no biggie—you’re going to serve it in pieces anyway. Wipe out the pan and repeat with the remaining cheddar.
- As it cools, the frico will become crisp. Break into large shards and transfer to a large bowl.
- Wipe out the skillet and return to medium heat. Add the butter. When it’s foaming, add the panko and season with salt. Stir to coat the panko with butter and cook, stirring almost constantly, until golden brown, about 6 minutes. Stir in the garlic powder and paprika.
- Transfer bread crumbs to the bowl with the frico shards and toss to combine. Taste and adjust seasonings.
- Gently turn the tomatoes over and spoon some of the accumulated juices over them. Top generously with cheddar crumbs. (You will have some left over; store airtight at room temperature for up to 2 weeks. Sprinkle them on green salads and simple pasta dishes, or use them to make this salad again.) Serve the salad with an extra drizzle of oil.
Excerpted from FOOD IS A FEELING: Recipes & Stories, With Love by Carla Lalli. Copyright © 2026 by Carla Lalli. Photographs copyright © 2026 by Lucia Bell-Epstein. Published in the United States by Clarkson Potter/Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.
