A Good Tomato Season?

I got an e-mail recently from a friend who berated me for not writing about the excellent produce season. While I am not the biggest fan of fruits and vegetables as anything other than a supporting cast to the lead actor: meat, I love tomatoes. But not those silly ersatz tomatoes from the supermarket. I mean those glorious, sweet, juicy intensely flavored beasts that show up occasionally in farmers markets and vegetable stands. But this year, while certainly better than last year’s awfulness, was not noteworthy. We had some good, and a few excellent batches, but I haven’t had a truly great tomato in several years. What has happened?