The Cutting Little Tomatoes Game

As I mentioned in last week’s post, I’m all about those little tomatoes—cherry, grape, plum, and best of all, sungold. But there’s one little problem: cutting. I like giving my little tomatoes some love in a pan with olive oil, red pepper flakes, garlic, and maybe a splash of white wine, so they break down and sweeten up. Whole tomatoes that burst are great, but that’s a longer oven game. Otherwise, a cut in half is what’s called for. But what a pain! All those little guys rolling around the cutting board, spilling their precious juice and going under the knife one by one.

Brad Leone has come to my aid. He’s a chef/editor at Bon Appetite and creator of the video series “It’s Alive!” In his videos, Brad approaches cooking projects, most of them involving fermentation, with enthusiasm that is omicron-level contagious, a fully embodied philosophy of cooking, and a host of delightful “Bradisms,” such as “shakeypoo” for shake and “rinseypoo” for rinse, “skoshe,” meaning “a little bit,” and “I’m a jar two-thirds full kind of person.”

In his video “Brad Makes Fermented Tomato Chicken,” Brad places cherry tomatoes on the lid of a plastic pint takeout container. Then, he places another lid, with its rim face down, on top. With one hand pressing the lid down gently, he runs a knife between the lids, managing to slice each tomato in half with one fluid motion. Brad recounts how, when he’d recently shown his dad the trick, his dad was blown away. So was I. I knew I needed to add that magnificent move to keep my Kitchen Game tight. But I was a bit skeptical that I could pull it off. It seemed too good to be true. And yet, it works like a charm. Try it! That’s the Cutting Little Tomatoes Game!