Celebrate the tomato: dinner first, then verse

On Aug. 12, Grill 23 hosts an "Ode to Summer Tomatoes" dinner. The four-course menu is $65 and prominently features something called Mr. Angelini's Amazing Tomatoes. These are grown by local farmer Pio Angelini, and I don't know what makes them so amazing because I haven't tried them, but I would surely like to find out. I dearly love good tomatoes, and I honestly haven't had one this season that's knocked my socks off.

Here's the menu, with wine pairings:

Simply marinated tomatoes with African budding basil and Rawson Brook chevre croquette
Tirecul la Graviere VdP du Perigord 2002

Tomato "clear" noodles around Laughing Bird shrimp
Schweiger Chardonnay 2006

Slow-cooked tomatoes with a prime rib pinwheel steak and blue gnocchi
(Why so blue, gnocchi? Cheer up -- it's tomato season!)
La Spinetta Barbaresco 2002

Tomato sorbet and upside down cake
Two Hands "Brilliant Disguise" Muscat 2006

Grill 23 & Bar, 161 Berkeley St., Boston. 617-542-2255. grill23.com.

The dinner, and the idea of celebrating tomatoes, brings to mind Pablo Neruda's poem "Oda al Tomate," possibly the best poem about produce ever written. And because it's Friday, and Fridays are good days for this kind of thing (and also because this has been a very popular item on boston.com today), I'll post it here, as translated into English by Nathaniel Tarn and then in Spanish.

Ode to the Tomato

The street
drowns in tomatoes:
noon,
summer,
light
breaks
in two
tomato
halves,
and the streets
run
with juice.
In December
the tomato
cuts loose,
invades
kitchens,
takes over lunches,
settles
at rest
on sideboards,
with the glasses,
butter dishes,
blue salt-cellars.
It has
its own radiance,
a goodly majesty.
Too bad we must
assassinate:
a knife
plunges
into its living pulp,
red
viscera,
a fresh,
deep,
inexhaustible
sun
floods the salads
of Chile,
beds cheerfully
with the blond onion,
and to celebrate
oil
the filial essence
of the olive tree
lets itself fall
over its gaping hemispheres,
the pimento
adds
its fragrance,
salt its magnetism --
we have the day's
wedding:
parsley
flaunts
its little flags,
potatoes
thump to a boil,
the roasts
beat
down the door
with their aromas:
it's time!
let's go!
and upon
the table,
belted by summer,
tomatoes,
stars of the earth,
stars multiplied
and fertile
show off
their convolutions,
canals
and plenitudes
and the abundance
boneless,
without husk,
or scale or thorn,
grant us
the festival
of ardent colour
and all-embracing freshness.

Oda al Tomate

La calle
se lleno de tomates,
mediodia,
verano,
la luz
se parte
en dos
mitades
de tomate,
corre
por las calles
el jugo.
En diciembre
se desata
el tomate,
invade
las cocinas,
entra por los almuerzos
se sienta
reposado
en los aparadores,
entre los vasos,
las mantequilleras,
los saleros azules.
Tiene
luz propia,
majestad benigna.
Debemos, por desgracia,
asesinarlo:
se hunde
el cuchillo
en su pulpa viviente,
es una roja
viscera,
un sol
fresco,
profundo,
inagotable,
llena las ensaladas
de Chile,
se casa alegremente
con la clara cebolla,
y para celebrarlo
se deja
caer
aceite,
hijo
esencial del olivo,
sobre sus hemisferios entreabiertos,
agrega
la pimienta
su fragrancia,
la sal su magnetismo:
son las bodas
del dia,
el perejil
levanta
banderines,
las papas
hierven vigorosamente,
el asado
golpea
con su aroma
en la puerta,
es hora!
vamos!
y sobre
la mesa, en la cintura
del verano,
el tomate,
astro de tierra,
estrella
repetida
y fecunda,
nos muestra
sus circunvoluciones,
sus canales,
la insigne plenitud
y la abundancia
sin hueso,
sin coraza,
sin escamas ni espinas,
nos entrega
el regalo
de su color fogoso
y la totalidad de su frescura.