The last of the tomatoes are coming in now, wide and cracked, heavy with the captured humidity of passing summer, each one a Neruda poem shedding its own light, benign majesty. It is time to eat them, these sunsets of the season, then put away our flip-flops and face the fall.

Dear Sam Sifton: You are a wonderful writer, and yes, tomatoes are magical and delicious. But your editor should probably have reigned you in a bit on this one.