Because slaving over the stove was completely out of the question this stifling evening, and because I am babysitting my seven-year-old brother, Liam, who eats like a full-grown man, I decided to eat out tonight. Although the Western Harnett area is expanding, dining options are still sadly limited.

I decided to branch out slightly and try the new-ish Subway at the Exxon at the Buffalo Lakes/ Hwy 27 intersection.

Before leaving the house, I asked Liam exactly what he wanted on his half of the footlong. If you’ve ever ordered with kids, you can probably appreciate why advance knowledge is invaluable.

“Oh, I just like turkey, and salad… and tomatoes!” he said. His face really lit up when he got to the tomatoes bit.

“Well, uh,” I articulately begin. “We can’t have tomatoes… because… some tomatoes are bad.”

Yeah, I’m off to a fabulous start here. How do you explain the salmonella outbreak to a kid without permanently altering his opinion of the fruit? I don’t want him to get the wrong idea, and think that tomatoes are permanantly off limits.

“Some tomatoes in the United States right now have a really bad germ on them called salmonella. The tomatoes at Subway might not have it, but we’re not going to take the chance of getting sick,” I offer.

“You mean, all the tomatoes? At all the Subways? Even the one by Food Lion? AND the one at the gas station?” he replies.

“Maybe. We’re not sure. But we’re not going to risk it, okay?” I tell him. He agrees without any complaint.

Sure enough, when we get to Subway there’s a notice about recalled tomatoes. We get our tomato-free food and head home to enjoy it in the comfort of our own kitchen.

Liam keeps referring to the sad lack of tomato slices on our sub. The Subway wrapper, adorned with fat and juicy tomatoes, mocks us. Grrrr. We want tomatoes.

Nonetheless, we made it through the meal all right.

“Well, that was a good meal. Tomatoes would have made it a little better… but everything was still good,” Liam concluded.

Link:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/812069/fda_updates_tomato_recall.html

(still very new to word press… so putting in a fancy hyperlink seemed out of the question… good ole cut and paste works, I guess)