You might say tomatoes are cross dressers. While each and every one of us think of them as a vegetable, in fact, they're a fruit. But, a while back in our history, tomatoes were officially called a vegetable by governmental forces to divert taxes and other legalities. But, that's a story for another day.

The mighty tomato has been through some very intriguing changes, tribulations and trials of merchandising. No one will dispute the perfection of a fresh tomato, plucked from the vine in ones' own garden, swept away to the kitchen, sliced, lovingly placed on fresh bread slathered in mayonnaise and then consumed with great ceremony. That's an experience from the Gods. Unfortunately, not everyone can boost such an experience.

Back in the day, tomatoes out-of -season was only available as a cardboard-like rendition of the real thing. Tubes of hard, orange-red globes merely resembled tomatoes. Their flavor and texture was non-organic. They were window dressings. Today, tomatoes available in supermarkets, in and out of season, smell and look like the real thing. Purchased on the vine, they offer taste and texture to rival the real thing from your backyard plot. Then there are grape tomatoes, which are sweet as honey, yellow tomatoes that delight the eyes and the palate and the newly discovered trend of heirloom seeds has produced an array of tomatoes that offer unique shapes and colors. Any dish can be enhanced with tomatoes, whether stewed, diced, flavored or pureed out of a can or, fresh from your source, sliced and incorporated into a menu.

For me, fresh tomatoes, warm from a sunny garden plot offer perfection when sliced and arranged between alternating slices of fresh mozzarella, red onion, basil leaves and a final drizzle of a simple vinaigrette dressing. A chunk of fresh Italian bread is mandatory to sop up the plate juices. Ahhh, life’s' simple pleasures.