Last night Tamara and Karl brought over the wave of the future: Haagen-Dazs Reserve Pomegranate Chip.

I’m always a fan of the fruit + chocolate combo, which is too rare, and this stuff tasted pretty damn good, if not completely pomegranate-y. But I couldn’t stop mulling over the irony that this particular combination surely would never have come into existence were it not for Americans’ preoccupation with miracle-working foodstuffs. It’s practically Health Food Ice Cream: two fantastic antioxidants bundled into a single pint!

To H-D’s credit, the marketing department refrained from touting these wondrous life-extending qualities on the package itself (there’s not much room on the label, after you’ve put on the required part about saturated fat). But the web site can’t help mentioning it, along with the vitamin C and folic acid that pomegranates supposedly have.

Oh, and I’m not making this up: There’s a recommended wine pairing! “A late harvest Zinfandel is the way to go.”

Handy, cuz I hear red wine is pretty good for you too.

[UPDATE: Ah. Just discovered the antioxidants are mentioned on the package–inside the lid. So when you’re standing around in the kitchen, eating straight out of the container, wondering if you should stop sooner rather than later, then your eye will just happen fall on this encouraging bit of nutritional news.]

For a while, I was keeping up with Alex Witchel’s particular flair for self-loathing and misery in the New York Times Dining section. Then, miraculously, she seemed to get a little more upbeat, and I forgot all about her.

Maybe today’s essay is just a desperate bid for my attention? First of all, the hed, “The Hunger and the Hostility Vanish in One Bite,” is a little alarming. Because if I know La Witchel, there ain’t gonna be no hostility vanishing.

This essay is ostensibly a light-hearted look at just how hilariously small NYC’s restaurant scene is, but, guess what, the great food makes up for all those awwwwk-ward! encounters. But there’s a token mention of only two food items–a bistro chix liver dish and Nobu’s miso cod–and then it’s on to a distressing tour of Witchel’s bitter psyche.

I thought the lowest point was when she dwells on the wrongs dealt her in high school, going so far as to call out a rival from those bad old days, a woman who ruined Witchel’s meal at the Palm by saying hello and praising her writing:

Dear Devoted Reader: I know that you slept with my boyfriend 24 years ago, and I have not forgotten.

I think I’m meant to say, Oh, snap! But I’m really thinking, Oh, sad. Witchel is older than I am, and she’s still pissed about this? Can’t we all just collectively agree that most everything we did in high school was foolish, and that we’re actually pretty decent people after all?

But then she goes on to tear apart a trashily dressed woman from L.A., bridle at the fact that said lingerie-clad hussy was speaking to her husband (who’s a little famous–people want to talk to him for more reasons than female rivalry), and then do that crazy, for-ladies-only “I hate you but instead I’ll smile and offer my umbrella, and then later dis you in a national newspaper” trick that I assume girls learn at summer camp?

And, again, we’re also treated to Witchel’s extremely problematic relationship with food…which always makes me wonder why she gets to write a food column, when it turns out she doesn’t really like to eat it. The instant some chicken livers pass her lips, she feels obliged to self-flagellate:

I went straight for the chicken livers and mushrooms, which I love — they have an Old World, homey taste, like something my far-from-French grandmother used to make — and which I almost never let myself order, hewing instead to the straight and narrow green salad. But desperate circumstances call for extra calories, not to mention extra cocktails.

There’s just nothing more unattractive than women publicly disavowing their meals. Just eat the damn thing and like it! Don’t make me feel obliged to say, “Don’t worry–your ass doesn’t look fat in an Old World, homey way.”

And then the last line of the essay, after she does the hypocritical umbrella escort to the boudoir-couture woman, she pats herself on the back:

On a full stomach, I’m actually a forgiving girl, myself. At least until breakfast.
Which I don’t eat.

Alex. Honey. No wonder you’re such an eye-scratching bitch. Starvation is a fast track to crankiness. Just eat some goddamn eggs and toast and sit in a sunny window and drink your coffee. I bet you’ll feel a whole lot better about high school.

From the generous marketing department at UglyRipes HQ, I got nine of these behemoth tomatoes in the mail. They arrived during the dreariest stretch of February, and we consumed them at a rate of more than one per day. We were extremely sad to see them go.

Before I get into the UglyRipes and their actual quality, let me just say first that of course, in an ideal world, we would all be scampering around in hand-woven hemp shifts and eating purely organic tomatoes only in the prime weeks of August, and letting the juice from these pristine heirloom beauties, all perfectly warm from the sun and fragrant from just having been snipped from the vine, dribble down our collective chins.

But, my children, the world just does not work that way.

Not only is New York a dreary place of celery root, potatoes and increasingly spongy apples all through the winter, but think of the poor people in, say, the upper Midwest, who might not even get a good local tomato in August, thanks to the fact that all the nearby farms have been turned over to soybean production. Sometimes you’ve just got to work with what the grocery store gives you (kinda like going to war with the army you have). Plus, um, sometimes you just really need a BLT.

For all these reasons and more, I am heartily welcoming UglyRipe tomatoes to the mainstream supermarket produce scene. Although they arrived at my house in a precious little Harry & David–style padded box, these are not super-crazy-premium tomatoes, massaged individually by octogenarian Japanese farmers, prayed over thrice daily and watered only with morning dew.

They are meant for nicer supermarkets, and as such they are priced not outrageously, between $3 and $4 per pound. Consider that Dutch greenhouse on-the-vine tomatoes, which are creepy simulacra of “wild” tomatoes, and the pink Styrofoam that’s your standard winter offering from Florida (thanks for nothing), which can be anywhere between $1 and $3 per pound, UglyRipes are also a relative bargain.

I gotta say, when I took the first one out of its little padded pigeonhole, I was sick with dread. It was hefty—at least half a pound—but very firm, clearly bred for long-distance travel. It looked great: bright red, and with those sexy little folds all around the top (ugly? No way—hot!).

But it didn’t smell like a damn thing.

So disappointing. This was shaping up to be one of those great marketing let-downs, like the BeDazzler.

But I just took a deep breath and chopped that baby up and made a Greek salad… And damn if it wasn’t just a little bit of summer in a bowl! Yes, the overall vibe could’ve been a little sunnier and warmer, and I could’ve been sipping some ouzo at the same time, but this tasted like actual real tomato, and there wasn’t a hint of mealiness to be found.

I went on to test the eight remaining UglyRipes in a quick spaghetti sauce (pretty good—I’ve been using canned for so long I’d forgotten what that could taste like), many more salads and, of course, BLTs (for which the Uglies got the worthy partner of my Heritage Foods Berkshire bacon and some hydroponic Boston Bibb lettuce). Over the course of the week, some of the tomatoes got a little riper; a couple started to get a little mealy, but they still had really strong flavor—nicely acidic and reasonably sweet, even though it wasn’t incredibly complex.

For the BLTs, even Tamara, who will eat celery root all winter even if it kills her, was swayed. “That is a mighty fine tomato!” she exclaimed. Karl looked overjoyed, because it meant there were now some tomatoes he might be able to buy in December without getting a seasonal beat-down from T.

UglyRipe HQ also sent me the marketing materials, through which I was intrigued to see that Uglies are grown not only in Florida, but also Mexico and New Jersey, depending on the time of year. So in the prime of August, those babies are bursting out of rich New Jersey soil, which for some reason seems to be the best tomato soil of all—I will be curious to try them then, and compare them with smaller-batch heirlooms from the Greenmarket.

In the meantime, though, UglyRipes are clearly leading the field in a competition that didn’t even exist until they created it: an all-season tomato that really tastes good.

And even if you don’t agree with the practice of shipping produce hither and yon, and are weaving your hemp shift for the coming All-Local Revolution, consider that UglyRipes may actually remind many Americans what a good tomato tastes like—and thus convert more people to the idea of food developed for flavor, not for shelf life or its ability to withstand being dropped from a truck.

It’s a bold concept, but I’m glad to see the good folks at UglyRipes HQ are getting it. Thanks, you tomato freaks!