Gazpacho

This has been a strange summer for lots of reasons, the most obvious one, of course, that it was my first full summer in Maine without Steve. Actually, it turned out not be a full summer in Maine. Spending two and a half uninterrupted months at the house on Pleasant Lake proved too difficult this year so I boldly broke with tradition and interspersed my summer in Maine with excursions: a rafting trip in Montana, a week in Cartagena with Liz and her girlfriends, visits to LA and Jamaica and then a trip to Scandinavia at the end of the summer. It was a good strategy although now that I look back it feels like I probably spent more time in airports and airplanes then anywhere else this summer.

When I was in Maine, I mostly had a good time. I got back on the tennis court, discovered paddle boarding on the lake, sat on the deck with a glass of wine to watch the sunset--all the usual things. But now that the summer is nearing its official end, I have one major regret: I never made gazpacho. A pitcher of that fabulously chunky liquid salad spiced as I like it with smoky Spanish pimento was never to be seen in my refrigerator this year. A staple of lunchtime, a healthy pre-dinner or late afternoon snack, perhaps the best reason ever to purchase a food processor, gazpacho has not appeared on the menu at my house in Maine or my apartment in Philadelphia. Its time has passed. . .at least for this year. Maybe next summer I'll be ready for gazpacho again.