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.

Ojai Weekend: A Perfect Pairing of Food, Wine & Music

In his farewell comments from the stage Sunday evening, the Artistic Director of the Australian Chamber Orchestra said it best: “We’ve had an amazing six months this weekend in Ojai.”

The packed amphitheatre roared its approval for the charismatic violist and his extraordinary musicians, but the bonhomie was meant to be shared with all the musical geniuses who had played or sung during a jam-packed schedule at the 65th Ojai Music Festival in Ojai’s newly refurbished outdoor bowl.   

As if six concerts in three days weren’t enough to dazzle the senses, the weekend also included a culinary experience in between Saturday’s musical events. I joined about 40 others on a Farm-to-Table Tour co-hosted by The Farmer & The Cook restaurant and The Ojai Vineyard. Farmer Steve Sprinkel showed us around Rio Gozo Farm, where he farms 12 acres of organic vegetables. Our group comprised several home gardeners, a few good cooks, a landscape architect or two, and one lady who braved the furrows in high-heeled open-toed sandals. Steve gave us plenty of information on organic techniques, seasonality, natural pest control and distribution, and soon enough we were eager to start tasting some of the bounty before us.

Off we went to the cafe/store Steve and his wife Olivia Chase have in Meiners Oaks, The Farmer & The Cook. Guess which one is which. As a patron of this favorite local spot, I was expecting an outdoor buffet of salads and cooked vegetables. What I didn’t expect was a sit-down five-course, organic feast accompanied by superb local wines served by the winemaker himself, Adam Tolmach.

We began with a sparkling cucumber KeVita Water garnished with a pickled carrot stick and garlic scape. Refreshing and delightful. At the table in their new dining room, Adam poured his Ojai Vineyard 2009 Sauvignon Blanc to accompany the first course which was flatbread topped with cherry chile aioli, thinly sliced potato, roasted cippolini onions and a lightly sautéed and seasoned squash blossom. The salad course came in a colorful bowl of radicchio, figs, salted walnut halves and orange slices dressed with honey and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar.

The next two courses were paired with an Ojai Vineyard syrah that Adam described as “perhaps our best syrah to date,” his 2006 Syrah Presidio, an absolutely superb wine that is made from biodynamic grapes grown in Santa Barbara County. It was complex and robust and paired perfectly with Olivia’s rye and rosemary biscuits topped with horseradish cream, and the main course, grilled Jimenez Farms leg of lamb.

I could have ended the evening right there with that magnificent syrah’s finish lingering on my tongue, but out came dessert: little cupcakes made with local tangerines and pistachios, soaked in a jasmine and orange blossom syrup and garnished with labneh, a tart, strained yogurt. Dessert was paired with a 2008 Viognier ice wine that Adam makes with Ojai’s Roll Ranch viognier grapes that are put in a freezer, returned to the winery for pressing and barrel fermented. The result: fruity and flowery and served ice cold with the petite cakes.

I was reluctant to tear myself away, but I had just enough time to make it to the next concert, where I sat, sated and dreamy, full of excellent food, superb wine and magnificent music. Now that’s what I call a weekend to remember. I’ve already bought my concert tickets for next year, and if they do another farm-to-table tour, you can bet that I’ll be there with my bib on.