summery dinner

When I had Rachael and Annie to dinner for tomato soup Rachael complained that she hadn't expected the soup to be hot, so I decided to have them back for gazpacho. I got up at the crack of dawn to make my second favorite French bread recipe, poolish baguettes from Jeffrey Hamelman's Bread (my number one, Acme rustic baguettes from Artisan Baking, requires more advance planning).







Then I met Annie after her dentist's appointment to eat lunch and shop a little. We got some nice trinkets at City Kitchen's birthday sale, and cucumbers and peppers at the Pike Place Market.

I made the gazpacho as soon as we got to my house, as Rachael was ailing and eager to get home to watch Gossip Girl.



Then while it chilled in the reefer I fixed this nice corn out of 1/2 a small onion, 4 ears of corn, 1/2 a New Mexico chile, a couple of cloves of garlic, and a big squirt of lime juice (the corn and the bread seemed to be the only things poor Rachael enjoyed):



I realized I'd forgotten to get lettuce, so I rooted around in my vegetable drawer for something suitable as a basis for salad and all I found was some celery. I sliced it up very thinly with my scary new machine, and dressed it like celeriac rémoulade.



Gazpacho

Soup:
1 kg tomatoes
2/3 of a cucumber, peeled
a small bell pepper. stemmed and seeded
1/4 of a small onion
a couple of handsful of bread
2T sherry vinegar (or red wine vinegar if that's all you have)
salt and pepper
3-4T olive oil

Garnishes:
croutons
1/3 of a cucmber, diced
1/2 of a bell pepper, seeded and diced
1/4 of a small onion, diced
anything else you think sounds good (avocado, hard-boiled egg, slivered herbs, halved green grapes....)

Whiz everything but the olive oil in a blender till smooth, then pour in the olive oil in a thin stream while the blender's going. Chill for at least an hour. Serve with the garnishes.