tomatoes01, originally uploaded by swardraws.

i gave mp and his wife some canned tomato sauce for her birthday last fall.

the other day, he told me in an email that he and his family had just enjoyed it at dinner the other night. he said that it was "delicious and unusual."

i'm really worried--what was so unusual about it? yikes. was it bad? i'd like to hope that if it were bad, they'd know and not eat it. i mean, there would be foam or mold, or a tingling sensation in their mouths when they tasted it.

i started to think, is mp's whole family dead at the dinner table? did i kill the great american hero at the start of his nationwide book tour?

uh-oh.

i tried to remember which batch of sauce i gave him jars from, and opened some to taste it. it tasted fine. no fizzing, no mold, no tingling tongue. no botulism.

today, one of the farmers i was ordering from told me that she bribed her way into a talk he was giving last night in santa cruz with her organic produce. she said gave him a bunch of carrots afterward, and he's still alive and kicking.

i'm just really curious about what was so unusual about it.