TasteFood

Gazpacho - une salade liquide

Oh my, it is hot. It's mid-May and we are experiencing a heat wave. How hot? Well, I have been told it will reach 100 F. (38C!) today. I am positive that right now my kitchen is pushing 125 F. Now, for those of you who do not know me, I am not a hot-weather person. My idea of a dream existence is to own a lovely stone house in the south of France and live there year-round except in the summer, when I would head north. I actually don't mind rain from time to time. It's the reverse of the natural order of things, I know, but my DNA is just not programmed to sustain the heat. I have come to expect the usual summer hot spells and prepare myself accordingly - but in May? I have been caught off-guard, and suspiciously wonder if this is how things really are in northern California in May, and nobody let on so I would willingly move here.

Consequently, I am quickly adjusting and reaching early into my summer repertoire of recipes that I use in extreme heat. These recipes involve no cooking, are fresh, light, thirst and appetite quenching. A favorite of mine is a variation of gazpacho, a puréed tomato-based soup from Spain, served cold. I call it a Liquid Salad, because, if you glance at the ingredients, that is very much what it is. My version involves no puréeing, because I love the toothsome texture of the finely diced vegetables, fresh and satisfying to the bite. Their colors mingle with their natural juices in a cool soup of tomato making this a festive and refreshing dish to present - one of the few un-wilted looking items in my kitchen at the moment.. The selection of vegetables can be varied. I stray from the conventional gazpacho and add carrot for its color and sweetness and fennel bulb for its anise flavor which lends a wonderful depth to the soup. This is a perfect liquid salad for a hot (not-yet) summer day.

Gazpacho

1 quart or 1 liter tomato juice
1 organic cucumber with skin, seeded, diced
1 large red onion, finely chopped
3 tomatoes, diced
1 carrot, peeled, finely diced
1 fennel bulb, fronds and outer pieces removed, finely diced
1 red or yellow bell pepper, seeded, ribs removed, diced
1 jalapeno pepper, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
1 teaspoon ground cumin
Juice of one lemon and one lime
2 tablespoons olive oil
Dash of tabasco sauce
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

1 handful fresh coriander (cilantro) chopped
1/2 handful Italian flat leaf parsley, chopped

Combine all of the ingredients in a large bowl except coriander and parsley.
Adjust seasoning to taste. Cover and chill at least one hour before serving. (Can be made up to 6 hours in advance.)
Stir in coriander and parsley before serving.

Border Crossings

As mentioned, Switzerland is a landlocked country bordering a handful of countries. From Geneva, you can be in France within 10 minutes, Italy in an hour, and from Basel and Zurich you are close to Germany, Leichtenstein, Austria. To an American this is just nifty. I mean, honestly, the most common border to an American is a state border, and crossing from California to Nevada or Massachusetts to New Hampshire is not nearly as thrilling as driving across a Swiss border to another country! When you cross a Swiss frontière, suddenly you enter another culture with another language, another way of making very good espressos, another set of road signs that you don't understand. Crossing a U.S. state border, you mostly find speed traps.

The first house I lived in was in a small village between Geneva and Lausanne. In this small hamlet, there was a marie, or town hall, a boulangerie(no self-respecting village would be without one) and a douane, or border guard. We lived one mile from the French border and could easily drive to and fro between Switzerland and France to our hearts' content. On Sundays we would shop the open air market in Divonne-les-Bains, purchasing fresh seasonal fruit and vegetables, roasted chicken, artisan cheese, paté and foie gras. We would then head to the local tearoom and recharge ourselves with a luscious croissant d'amandes and cappuccino before crossing back over the border to our home in Crassier.

When I first arrived, I loved casually inserting into a conversation with friends or family back in the U.S. that I had just shopped for groceries that morning in France, or that I would dine that evening in a French countryside auberge. My friend Kingsley arrived from the U.S. to visit me, and one of our first outings was to walk to France. Now, mind you, this was not the most scenic walk to do in the area, but, by golly, what a good story to talk about after. We nonchalantly waved bon jour to the Swiss border guards as we strolled past their guardhouse and casually glanced at the decidedly empty French border guardhouse (the guards were most likely fortifying themselves over a 2 hour lunch break) and then voilà! We were officially in another country! We trudged on to our destination, a simple café in a French village where we ordered Salade aux Crottins de Chavignol, a glass of wine and the French version of very good espresso. We then walked back over the border and still are, clearly, talking about it.

Bon Appétit

For the past 18 years I have lived in 5 countries. In 1990 I moved to Paris to study cooking with the intention of lingering on after my cooking program finished and finding a job. Originally I planned to work as an interior designer. After all, that was my profession in Boston before I moved, and while I loved cooking, I approached it more as a hobby and a ticket to Europe. I figured that once I got myself to Paris, learned the ropes of La Cuisine Française, magically learned French (I studied Spanish in school), endeared myself to the all-embracing French population and became a local, well, then, I might just get a design job with Euro-Disney, which was in the process of being constructed on the outskirts of Paris. I would nimbly straddle the French-American culture, drinking café au lait and eating baguettes (I was on a tight budget, after all) while involving myself in the construction and decor of the Magic Kingdom and home of Mickey Mouse. Sounded like a plan.

As all best laid plans go, before I even boarded the jumbo to take me to Paris, I met a Dane in Boston who was in town on business from Geneva, Switzerland. What does this have to do with anything, you may ask. Well, everything. We hit it off, we liked each other. I thought he was cute, and apparently he felt the same about me. So, when I did fly over to Paris to cook, that was not the only thing that began cooking. Geneva and Paris are a 3 hour TGV train ride apart, and for the next 6 months we spent nearly every weekend together either in Paris or Geneva. So, upon my graduation from La Cuisine Base de Française in Paris, I decided that Euro-Disney would have to be built without me, packed my bags and took another TGV ride to Geneva - this time with the plan to stay.