It's Baaaack...

A Satanic tomato will not be held down for long.
--RRNN


“I'm forever running across accounts of people who notice the faces of saints, gods, mothers of god, and the like, that turn up, as a Message from Above, on their grilled cheese sandwiches or their burritos or something, and until now, I have to admit, I have scoffed.
That, of course, was before I went out into the garden and found myself face to face with The Satanic Tomato. I picked it and brought it inside.
I do know that the appropriate religious response to these divine food manifestations is to put it on eBay and to rake in the cash; and yet I fear that if this tomato fell into the wrong hands, it'd be Armageddon, before you could say Demonic Salad Vegetable. ..”
-- Neil Gaiman 09/02/05


“Lots of people writing to ask me to eBay the satanic tomato for charity. My hesitation on this is simply that it's a tomato. They don't last long. By the time an auction would be done, I'd be sending someone a rotted, icky thing that would no longer resemble a tomato.
Having said that, if anyone can figure out a way to make money for Katrina relief out of a demonic one-horned tomato that's currently sitting in the fridge looking slightly less bouncy than it did yesterday, let me know. Er, relatively fast… In the photo, He was sitting in all His Infernal Awfulness on a copy of the new mass-market paperback edition of Smoke and Mirrors.”
-- Neil Gaiman 09/03/05


“I need to sleep, so this is just a hasty post to say that you are an amazingly inventive lot, and while freeze-drying, lacquering or any of the other demonic tomato-based suggestions were really good, the overwhelming vote is for...
Demonic Salsa.
We'll figure out the details tomorrow.”
-- Neil Gaiman 09/05/05


“Right. So we decided to do a label or two for the Salsa. There has already been one gratefully accepted offer of art for a cartoon label, and then I thought that, in addition to that, it might be fun to try potential photographic labels. Not sure whether I'll use one of them, all of them, or none of them... Two of them are me and the tomato in question. One is the kitten, planning total world domination. I shall leave it to you to figure out which is which. Frankly, I like to think that I could be the Paul Newman of Satanic Salsas. Or, failing that, at least the Tony the Tiger of Satanic Salsas. Having said that, of course, I think that, in their hunt for the face of Satanic Salsa, most focus groups would pick the kitten...”
-- Neil Gaiman 09/05/05


“Went off into the garden, picked many tomatoes, not to mention the last of the onions, and sorrell, basil, cilantro, jalapenos and other hot and sweet peppers, garlic and everything except limes (which I bought), and I made a large quantity of salsa.
The devil-tomato is in there, although I forgot to save the seeds. Lots of jars have been bought and prepared, and tomorrow while I'm off talking to press people, it'll all be canned. I haven't figured out the label bit yet, but whatever I do will probably also involve numbering each bottle. And then I expect we'll eBay them, or something.”
-- Neil Gaiman 09/06/05