“In issue 03, Tomato Tomato examines time, loosely defined and often dreamily experienced: the clashes between past and present, the ways in which people try to give shape to nostalgia and cultivate new roots, and how cuisine and language survive the mindlessness of overtourism and the destruction of colonialism.”

“The airport was humid, smelled sweet-and-sour, and reminded me of many occasions dawdling here, daydreaming while the adults fussed about boarding passes. Now the Mumbai airport has a Popeyes in it, and I earn in dollars.”

“Ninety percent of autistic people have sensory processing disorder (SPD). Some are hyposensitive (or under-sensitive), meaning they need extra sensory input to feel grounded. But for most of us, hypersensitivity means we avoid sensory input, otherwise we quickly get overwhelmed.”

“When I wrote a memoir about moving to Ireland, one of the copy editor’s notes advised using the phrase ‘the Irish language’ instead of just ‘Irish’ for my glossary because, she said, many English-language readers won’t be aware that there’s an Irish language at all. Having lived in the west of Ireland, where the language revival is strongest, for nearly fourteen years now, that startled me.”

“Lima’s gastronomic boom of the past twenty years, though, fueled a rise in cosmopolitan fine dining restaurants, sleek cocktail bars with mixologists, vibey cebicherías, and Instagrammable cafés for all your influencer needs. Tabernas relied on nostalgia to hold on for dear life.”

“More and more, Venice is a postcard, a destination, an Instagram location tag, or a wedding venue for billionaires, which makes it less and less a place of everyday life, a place where you can buy scissors and walk your dog and get your laptop fixed.”

An excerpt from the forthcoming book The Curious Lives of Vegetables: An Artful Exploration of the Wonderful World of Edible Plants, Their History, and Their Crucial Role in Our Future.

“You may have gone to France with a quiet confidence, knowing you can converse in French with Parisian waiters and they never know you’re an American—mon dieu! You also may have ignored how close Alsace is to Germany and underestimated your comprehension beyond the Parisian accent, and you certainly were not expecting to dissect the blended regional Alsatian dialect.”

“Sobejano believes her cookbook is still popular because its ingredients are accessible. The recipes do not call for hard-to-find spices; Basque cuisine eschews seasoning and demands stand-alone freshness. The clientele of Garraxi, which she left years ago, also remains loyal to this neighborhood fixture.”

“To put a tlayuda on the menu, Hilario had to adapt it; the components, the presentation—how could he tweak them to make sense in this setting, with the smoked trout dip and six-grain sourdough, the Josef Frank wallpaper and sheepskin throws?”

“Philly was a purposeful respite from a loud, crowded existence; my husband and I were fortunate to find an apartment and start a new era here. Here in this city where you’re as likely to be run over as you are to have your car dug out during a freak blizzard by a stranger wearing head-to-toe Eagles gear, I walk out the door, day after day, expecting chaos and kinship in equal measure.”