It’s time to get excited about tomatoes.

At long last, tomato season has landed in the Bay Area. Let’s get excited.

Every summer, I await the arrival of the season’s first tomatoes. Hands down, tomatoes are my favorite fruit.

Canned, fresh, stewed — I’ve never met a tomato dish that I didn’t like. But a few weeks ago, I was watching “Binging with Babish,” one of my favorite YouTube cooking channels, which re-creates iconic foods from movies and television. I was taken aback by a tomato dish that I just couldn’t quite wrap my head around: the Tomate du Saltambique from “The West Wing.” The dish, which is actually a fictional interpretation of Alain Passard’s signature tomates confites aux douze saveurs, features a tomato that’s stewed for several hours in creme caramel. It’s then stuffed with passion fruit and kiwi, topped with hazelnuts and, finally, served with a pomegranate reduction. Say what? Still perplexed at the prospect of tomatoes as dessert, I moved on with my tomato dessert-free life. Until I had dinner with friends at the Progress on Fillmore Street. When the dessert menus were presented, lo and behold, one of the seasonal desserts was a corn custard ... featuring a tomato caramel sauce. Naturally, I had to order it. It was spectacular. The tomatoes in the caramel offered a bright acidity and lovely depth to the sweet and creamy corn custard. I had to have the recipe, so I reached out to Nicole Krasinski at the Progress to see if she would share — and happily, she did.

Krasinski is no stranger to using tomatoes in unexpected applications. Last summer, she made a yeasted tomato cake. And she has been making the Sun Gold caramel sauce for many years and says that in addition to the custard, it’s also great as a garnish for a cheese board. (I’m pretty sure it would be spectacular along with vanilla ice cream or pound cake, too.)

I still haven’t worked up the nerve to try “The West Wing” version, but I will definitely add Krasinski’s tomato caramel to my summertime repertoire.

As it turns out, when it comes to cooking with tomatoes, there is more to life than panzanella, Caprese and tomato sauce.