Joseph F. Radosevich

 I see lists all the time about plants to grow, but they usually don't talk about flavor. That is the number one thing I grow tomatoes for. So when I go to learn about new varieties, I want to know how they taste.  Brad Gates says that 80-90% of heirloom tomatoes don't taste good. When I told her that, Emma commented recently that all the tomatoes we grow taste great. That is because now I look hard before buying new varieties. We've grown bad varieites before. Here are my favorite tomatoes (any of them could be a favorite if grown all by themselves). Cherry tomatoes are small and perfectly round. Grape tomatoes are smaller but not perfectly round. Slicing and beefsteak are bigger. Sungold (cherry)--The best there is. Green Zebra (medium sized)--Very Tangy. German Pink (huge)--Emma loves these. Chocolate Cherry (cherry)--These might be my favorite from this year. Sunrise Bumblebee (cherry)--An interesting surprise, these are fruity. Pink Bumblebee (cherry)--These taste like

 I realized a few things about my reading in the last year. One is to stop be pretentious about my reading. I like what I like. I should stop faking liking high-brow things. What I want to mention today, though, is that I prefer to read books a few years old. I can only read 25-35 books a year. I can't keep up with the deluge of books around me. When I realized how little time I had to read, I realized that I wanted to read quality.  Some people take that to mean reading only really old books. I can't and won't do that only (I did just read Sense and Sensibility, though). I like what I like, remember? When I read only the latest books, I realized that I often read books that weren't that great and wouldn't stand the test of time. The author would be on a podcast, and the book sounded great and timely. I would read the book and find that it wasn't a book that I would recommend to others. Books that are a few years old have the benefit of other people reading and