We as adults and parents think that our children will love the foods that we love to eat. Wrong!

I am unusually teed off at two of my three children for not loving or eating tomatoes. Personally, I love tomatoes.

The months of August and September are the best time to savor these red beauties. The tomatoes are big, fat and ripe, with thin skins and luscious insides that just ooze and drip with that taste that I love. New Jersey beefsteaks are my favorites. Get some salt and a sharp knife and you are just about set.

Somewhere in my early years, I remember my Aunt Minnie eating a tomato whole, just taking bites out of it - heaven! My kids like tomato sauce, pizza and other foods with crushed tomatoes but do not place a slice of tomato in their salad. They will plop it out of the salad bowl on to the side dish. That is when I reach over with my fork to spear it and gobble it down whole.

Where are their misplaced genes? My wife is also a fan of that luscious red fruit. How can I remedy this gustatory deficiency in my children? At the age of 40 or 35 years old maybe it is a hopeless wish.

Each May I take out my huge pots and place them on the deck. Fertilizer, peat moss and tomato food are placed in the earth and a tiny tomato plant is inserted and watered. Through June and July the sun and rain do their work and the tiny tomato plant blossoms into a mini-jungle. Huge sticks and wire containers are placed over and alongside the growing plant and its vines.

The yellow flowers start to dot the vines. Each yellow flower is destined to become a ripe, delectable red, plump tomato. As much as I love the New Jersey variety, there is nothing like eating a tomato that you have nursed, fed and grown yourself.

Now if I can only convince my two wayward offspring that tomatoes are wonderful and that they should occupy every salad, my life's mission will be complete.