Last week's Desperation Dinners newspaper column:

Fresh-off-the-vine tomatoes are still weeks away in my neck of the woods. You know what I mean, those delicious orbs that grow right on your deck or in the garden and go straight from the vine into your favorite dish. Forgive my fawning, but I do look so forward to tomato season. So until they are lining my windowsill and all I have to do is reach up, grab one and eat, roasting the tomatoes I can find is still the best way to bring out the natural flavor normally supplied by the sun.
Enter my favorite restaurant salad: the Caprese. A layered salad of fresh sliced tomatoes, fresh mozzarella and basil leaves, I wondered how I could enjoy this salad now. So I decided to roast garlic an sliced tomatoes one night and stack them with fresh sliced mozzarella.
 

I was out of fresh basil and wondered if I’d miss it. But a drizzle of balsamic vinegar and the blend of baby field greens beautifully substitutes that sweet bitter flavor the basil usually brings to the salad. There’s no need for vinaigrette, since there’s plenty of extra-virgin olive oil from roasting.
The result was a delicious, easy, entrée salad. If all you need is a satisfying side salad, then each recipe will serve two. So until the tomatoes are fresh off the vines and directly on our tables, a little roasting is all it takes for that smooth, sunshine-filled flavor we crave.