Gazpacho

If you are a passable cook, you can probably recall pivotal moments in your childhood kitchen when your mother (or whoever was the best cook in your family) shared a culinary secret with you, a tidbit of knowledge or culinary insight that made the light go on in your head and you just knew that someday you were going to be a good cook, too.

My mother was an uninspired cook who passed precious few culinary insights on to me. In fact, so few that the only one I can actually recall is when she announced that one of her dearest friends could make soup out of leftover lettuce, along with all the bits from the bottom of the salad bowl. Whatever ambitions I may have had about becoming a decent cook went as limp as a used lettuce leaf at that precise moment.

Fast forward several years to the time I first tasted gazpacho, that icon of summer soups. It was in a New York restaurant on a hot August day in the sixties. I had met friends for lunch, escaping for an hour from my job as a secretary at Vogue magazine. About all any of us could afford on our $88-a-week jobs was soup and some iced tea. Lucky for us that the soup-of-the-day was ice-cold gazpacho.

Gazing at the bowl that was thick and fragrant with summer vegetables, I flashed back to the leftover lettuce concoction that my mother had thought was so exotic. I plunged my soup spoon into that blended ambrosia before me, and became a believer.

The tomato bonanza in my garden this summer has called for heroic measures to use tomatoes in as many different ways as I can, so I’ve made gallons of gazpacho that I’ve served to friends and have myself consumed for lunch and dinner in a single day.

There may be as many recipes for gazpacho as there are for turkey stuffing, but this one is easy and if your garden is overflowing, you can pull most of the ingredients right out of your back yard.

 Ice cold Gazpacho served on the patio, herbs from the garden for a centerpiece.

Gazpacho

½ Sweet onion, cut in 6 pieces

2 Cloves garlic

4 Large ripe tomatoes, cored and quartered

2 Cucumbers, peeled and cut in chunks. Set aside ½ cup.

1 Red pepper, diced. Set aside ½ cup.

1 Small green pepper, diced. Set aside ½ cup.

1 Jalapeno pepper, stemmed and seeded

¼ Cup balsamic vinegar

2 Cups tomato or V-8 juice

2 Teaspoons tomato paste

2 Sprigs each parsley and basil

½ Teaspoon salt

6 lime wedges for garnish

1-2 Avocados, diced for garnish

If you can’t find a sweet Vidalia onion, use a red onion instead. Cut the onion in 6 pieces and soak in ice water for 15 minutes before blending.

Blend the garlic, tomatoes and onion. Add the cucumber, peppers, jalapeno, and vinegar. (Make sure to set aside ¾ cup each of the cucumber and red and green peppers.) Add 1 cup of the tomato juice, tomato paste, parsley, basil and salt. You may have to do this in batches. Combine the blended vegetables in a large bowl. Add remaining tomato juice and season with salt and pepper. Stir in the reserved diced peppers and cucumber. Chill at least 2 hours before serving. Serve each bowl with a wedge of lime and a spoonful of diced avocado. Serves 6.

I asked the guys at Ojai Beverage Company to recommend both a red and a white wine to go with gazpacho, and they suggested a crisp Sauvignon Blanc from Paso Robles, and a Sicilian red from Rapitala. Both worked perfectly.