I Say Tomato

Here in the apartment during the summer I eat a fresh tomato most evenings. For storage they just sit  on the kitchen counter. Visualize, if you would, what would happen to a tomato left to sit on the counter in my RV while I changed camps.

Right.

Now I could put tomatoes in the fridge in my RV but that kills the taste of them. And I could put them in my pantry with the canned goods but the cans tend to shift if I have to make any sudden moves including tight turns so I would soon have smashed tomatoes.

And the same thing would happen with bananas.

So, I’ve been trying to figure out how to safely store and transport delicate produce like tomatoes and bananas.

My first thought was to buy a metal basket to hang someplace to put these items in. So when I was offered a free wire chicken-shaped basket I took it. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any place to hang it where it would not be in the way of something else.

Then one of my Yahoo groups started talking about hammocks. This group is mostly people who have converted a cargo van to something in which they can live. Someone suggested you use a hammock for a bed so you can take it down during the day and have full access to the space. Someone else said they put a hammock along one wall above their regular bed and they store clothes there. Someone else said you can store all kinds of things in hammocks. Someone said they didn’t have room for a hammock but they did use a gear loft for holding things.

I have a gear loft. It came with my roll-up table. I think you are supposed to hang it under the table to put the table’s storage bag in so the bag won’t blow away. I just leave my storage bag in the van when I take the table out. Plus, when I did put the gear loft under the table it tickled my knees so I didn’t like it there.

I got the gear loft out and held it up under my kitchen cupboards to see if it would fit there. Yes!

So off we went to the local hardware store. We have one not far down the road from us in the neighborhood where Dave lived as a child. One of those old-fashioned hardware stores where they have everything. Including helpful clerks.

Dave showed our clerk a picture of the tie downs in my rig and said we wanted something similar. We looked at u-bolts and similar items but they were all too big. Then, as these clerks usually do if they can’t find what you want, he asked if we would be willing to assemble something from pieces parts. He found us some flat plates to be the cross piece and some wood screws to be the uprights and we headed back to the RV to begin installation.

Dave was hoping to be able to just screw into the bottom of the cupboard but the wood was a bit too resistant so here he is with his huge drill in my tiny space drilling pilot holes:

 

And here’s my new banana hammock:

 

We tightened it up enough that the front and back of the hammock are right up against the ceiling but the ends are open for inserting and removing food items.

 

So when I leave this fall, I can stock up on fresh produce and it won’t become mush before I can eat it. Let’s hear it for fresh tomatoes. And hardware store clerks who really do help their customers.

TTYL,

Linda