Reminiscing over Granada and gazpacho

Last summer, after 5 grueling weeks in oh-so-super Salamanca studying advanced Spanish grammar and memorizing a multitude of random facts about Spain (for example, black-foot Iberian piggies make better ham than white-foot piggies, and the word Spain originally meant the Land of Rabbits), my husband and I took a little jaunt around the country to see some sights and taste the flavors of RabbitLandia.

As you probably know, summer in the south of Spain is HOT.  Even Sean Kingston knows that.  So how do people cook on a day that is SO hot that you can’t even THINK about turning on the oven?  To solve this little dilemma, someone came up with this great idea: take a whole bunch of yummy fresh vegetables and mix them with olive oil, garlic, wine vinegar and soggy day-old bread and then chill it and eat it as a soup called “gazpacho.”  Seriously, who comes up with this stuff?

Well, anyway, after an excruciatingly hot day spent touring the Alhambra in Granada, we stumbled our way down the hill into the  city below the hilltop palace.  And we somehow managed to avoid the tourist restaurants serving horrible paella and work our way into a place that was half ham-counter/deli and half family restaurant.  There was an impressive number of Spaniards crammed into the small, smoky place, and many of them were out for lunch as a family.  This is a VERY good sign when you are in a foreign country and looking for a place to eat.  So, we snagged a table right in the middle, and although it took quite a while, we managed to enjoy some Sopa de Ajo (garlic soup) a Gazpacho (chilled tomato and cucumber soup) and some PORK.  Yes, pretty much if you don’t eat pork, you will have trouble finding a decent meal in Spain because there is pig meat in everything.  Whole fish?  Topped with ham.  Roasted asparagus?  Topped with ham.  Vegetable sandwich?  Those sneaky Spaniards.  Believe it or not, there was ham in that, too…

So, today was a hot summer day here in Connecticut, as well.  And my husband and I, while sitting around sweating our heinies off decided that the best way to celebrate the day was to commemorate last year’s beautiful trip by mushing up some vegetables and calling it a soup.  So I watched a few videos on youtube and checked a few recipes to find the basic ingredients of a gazpacho, and did the following steps.  Make sure you follow these steps very carefully and precisely:

1) get out your blender

2) throw in a whole bunch of vegetables (namely, a couple pounds of tomatoes, half a cuke, half a red bell pepper, half a green bell pepper, a clove or three of garlic, and a bit of sweet yellow onion)

3) toss in a few chunks of soggy bread (preferably, a dry crusty bread that has been soaked in water – we used multigrain to sneak in a few extra bits of nutrition)

4) drizzle in some extra virgin olive oil, some red wine vinegar and a few pinches of salt

5) blend for a couple of minutes

6) strain

7) chill and eat!

All soups should be eaten with Asian soup spoons.

We topped our gazpacho with diced cukes and peppers, some crispy homemade croutons, and bits of turkey bacon – in Spain, you would probably just put some ham on it, but the hubster is on a no-pork diet to try to keep the cholesterol in check.  And to compliment this excellent meal in a truly celebratory fashion, we rounded it out with some Miller High Life.  Apparently it is the champagne of beers.  Who knew?  Cheers to that!