Tomato

Match the tomato to the job: Romas are meaty with few seeds and made for slow roasting, cherry tomatoes are the sweetest and most reliable year-round, and beefsteaks are for slicing and grilling. Buy tomatoes that feel heavy for their size and smell like tomato at the stem end. No smell usually means no flavor. Store them on the counter, stem side down, never in the fridge: below 60°F the texture goes mealy and the flavor enzymes shut off. If they're fully ripe and you can't use them in a day or two, refrigerate to buy a week, then roast them (roasting hides a multitude of fridge sins).

Roasting is the single best thing you can do to a mediocre tomato: the oven drives off water and concentrates the sugars, turning even sad winter supermarket tomatoes into something sweet and jammy. The biggest mistake is treating all tomatoes the same. Cherry tomatoes want high heat so they burst and caramelize, Romas want a slow roast at 250°F until they're halfway to sun-dried, and thick beefsteak slices can even hold their own on a grill. I roast a sheet pan of cherry tomatoes almost every week and the leftovers get smashed onto toast, tossed with pasta, or spooned over eggs.