Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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"A passion for tomatoes"
A grower and a chef combine to create a heavenly feast of heirloom 
varieties
  
Craig LeHoullier tends to some of the 105 varieties of heirloom 
tomatoes that he grows at his North Raleigh home.  
 Staff Photos by Travis Long
By SAMANTHA THOMPSON SMITH, Staff Writer


RALEIGH -- Craig LeHoullier was barely through the first course when 
he put his fork down and sat back contented in his chair. "My 
tomatoes have been taken to heaven," he said. He was right. It 
almost didn't seem right that old tomatoes - tomatoes with histories 
that go back for generations - could taste so good.
Last week, they did.

Two of Raleigh's most obsessed foodies -- one for heirloom tomatoes 
and one for cooking -- collaborated for a unique dinner at Enoteca 
Vin to show the culinary power of heirloom tomatoes.

LeHoullier supplied the tomatoes, and Ashley Christensen did the 
cooking.

You may have heard of Christensen. She's one of Raleigh's best known 
chefs, mostly for her work at Enoteca Vin in Raleigh's Glenwood 
South.

But LeHoullier? He's another story.

LeHoullier has become a cult figure of sorts in international 
heirloom tomato growing circles. He and his wife, Susan LeHoullier, 
who live in North Raleigh, have been growing heirloom tomatoes since 
he became bored growing regular tomatoes back in 1986.

We're not talking about just a few varieties, mind you. The 
LeHoulliers are hyper-tomato growers. This year, they have 105 
varieties, all growing either in pots in the driveway or in the 30-
by-50 foot garden next to their suburban house. That's in addition 
to the eggplant, peppers and basil scattered among the rows and pots 
of tomatoes.

This is not just a simple hobby. Over the years, LeHoullier has 
collected more than 1,700 seed varieties, even resurrecting a few 
long-forgotten heirloom tomato varieties over the years from the 
U.S. Department of Agriculture. He's written articles. He's named a 
few varieties. And every summer, he studies each variety he plants 
to see how well it grows in his soil and what kinds of diseases it 
can withstand.

Other growers throughout the world know him through his Web site 
(aptly called http://nctomatoman.topcities.com) that's packed with 
all sorts of information about his tomato growing adventures. Here 
you'll find LeHoullier's meticulously kept spreadsheets on heirloom 
tomato varieties, complete with pictures of seedlings, leaf shapes 
and what the fruit looks like unripe and ripened.

Regulars at the State Farmers Market might know the couple for the 
heirloom tomato plants they sell each April and May. They start 
growing the plants in February at home from the seeds LeHoullier has 
collected and dried himself from tomatoes they grew and later ate 
the previous summer.

So when LeHoullier teamed up last week with Christensen, who is 
known for her near obsession about using local produce in her food, 
it was a meeting of two fanatics.

On the menu: A salad, chilled soup, risotto, seared lamb and 
dessert, all with various green, orange, yellow and red heirloom 
tomatoes in different shapes and sizes from the LeHoulliers' garden.

Christensen used her trademark skill of helping keep the integrity 
of food flavors through simple cooking techniques.

"We tried to write the menu so that everything was really about the 
tomatoes," she said. "We tried to let the nature of the tomato be 
the defining character of the dish."

It's the flavor

But then again, she had plenty to work with in LeHoullier's 
heirlooms. Heirloom tomatoes, which are grown from seeds that have 
been saved over generations and handed down, often by family 
members, typically are more flavorful than store-bought hybrids that 
are sometimes picked green and then gassed to help ripen them.

Their often quirky names -- such as Mortgage Lifter and Lucky Cross -
- help tell their stories or describe their heritage. And LeHoullier 
knows most of those stories, either from hearing them from family 
members or through his exhaustive research.

The dinner had a mix of some of LeHoullier's favorites.

There were Mexico Midgets (a pea-sized tomato brought into the 
United States from Mexico by a truck driver) in the risotto. 
Cherokee Purples (which LeHoullier named back in 1990) appeared in 
the North Carolina lump crabmeat salad. Mortgage Lifters (named by a 
man who was able to pay off his mortgage during the Depression by 
selling the tomato plants) were featured in the spicy chilled 
heirloom tomato soup. And even dessert, basil panna cotta, was 
topped by a salsa made with Cossack Pineapples (a pineapple-flavored 
cherry tomato also known as husk tomato.)

"What I'm delighted about is that she let the tomatoes speak for 
themselves," LeHoullier said after the four-hour dinner. "There's no 
way to describe this."

Christensen had her own particular favorite: the Mexico Midget, 
mostly because of its tiny size. "It hits on quite a few senses," 
she said. "I like the idea of being able to experience something as 
a whole like that, with the texture of the skin, the pop and the 
inside that's so sweet."

Even those who don't know a Brandywine from a German Johnson were 
able understand the growing fuss in recent years about heirloom 
tomatoes and their unique tastes.

"I think she really respected the different flavors," said Steve 
Gruber, who was one of 16 people at the dinner. "She was really good 
about bringing that out."

Every day in summer

This was no ordinary meal for the LeHoulliers. During summer's 
heirloom tomato growing season, which usually ends in late September 
or early October, tomatoes are part of everyday eating at their 
home. But they normally go a little less Vin-like and more 
traditional, still using Christensen's trick of keeping the 
ingredients simple to let the tomato flavors stand on their own.

For instance, they usually use their Cherokee Purples in tomato 
grilled cheese sandwiches with pumpernickel bread and Shelburne 
Farms cheddar. Or they create a pasta salad using the Cherokee 
Purples, olive oil, mozzarella and basil. They can their tomatoes, 
too, so they can enjoy their Brandywines and Andrew Rahart's Jumbo 
Reds into winter.

LeHoullier and Christensen had collaborated before. Earlier this 
month, they set up a sampling table at the Durham Farmers' Market. 
The LeHoulliers gave out tomato samples while Christensen whipped up 
some salsa.

Julie Young, Vin's event coordinator, introduced the two last 
summer. Young, an avid organic gardner and heirloom seed 
preservationist, had heard about LeHoullier for years through the 
Seed Savers Exchange organization. She was surprised when she later 
learned LeHoullier was from Raleigh. So she sought him out at the 
Farmers Market and later invited him to speak at a Farmers Market 
dinner at Vin last summer.

She recalls how Christensen and LeHoullier hit it off, mostly 
because the two are so similar in the intensity of their 
passions. "They're both maniacs about what they do," she said.

So it wasn't a surprise when the two planted the seeds last summer 
for this year's dinner.

While the pairing was a success, LeHoullier was reluctant to promise 
more collaborations with area restaurants. He doesn't have enough 
garden space to go commercial. And he probably doesn't have enough 
entrepreneurial drive, he said. But then again, LeHoullier's passion 
for tomatoes is only part of his life; he has a full-time job in 
business change management and consulting at GlaxoSmithKline.

If anything, he plans to write a book about his tomato growing 
knowledge when he gets the time.

"It's so incredible what he does," Young said. "And he does it for 
all the right reasons. They don't care a lot about money. They just 
believe in a quality life. They care about changing the earth."