The most delicious thing I’ve ever eaten came as a startling surprise. When I was a kid, tomatoes were as hard as rocks. I didn’t like them at all.

I have paintings of tomatoes!

Between my junior and senior year in high school, I went on a long road trip to Prince Rupert, British Columbia, to catch a ferry boat to Sitka, Alaska.

The first leg of the journey, my parents drove me to the town of Fort Laramie, which was the rendezvous point for kids from Casper and Lingle.

Fort Laramie is the site of a military installation where several Great Plains tribes signed a treaty with the U.S. government in 1851.

The local Presbyterian church served us lunch. It was a sandwich bar. 

I learned that it was impolite to turn down food, and added a juicy slice to my sandwich. I had never seen a huge, red tomato like that before and didn’t know what to expect.

Was I surprised at the texture and taste of my first beefeater tomato? I became a connoisseur from that day forward.