So listen, I know I promised you recipes and I WILL give you recipes, I swear, but it’s too hot to cook…
Obviously I’ve been cooking for the kids, but not with much gusto, mostly just arranging semi-healthy “snack plates” the boys loll on the sofa arguing over watch to watch on telly. So no recipe this week, but I’ll give you a tip instead. A hot-cold tip:
Store-bought Gazpacho! It’s literally the best thing ever.
It’s a heatwave in London, which means it’s been 22C and sunny for approximately three days in a row. Anywhere else this would be classified as perfect weather, but Londoners are fragile flowers in this singular regard… the heat makes us wilt, I didn’t understand it for years until suddenly my body acclimated and now the moment the temp rises above 15C I’m like a Victorian lady, dewing and fanning myself under my parasol. It might be peri-menopause, but that goes for almost anything.
The point is, I’ve found the solution to this appetite-draining mid-summer enervation, and it’s store-bought gazpacho.
I drink a couple of pints of a day. It keeps me from fainting at my desk. Even when all other food makes me want to roll into bed, it’s consistently delicious. This brand in particular because it’s properly seasoned with just the right amount of umami zing. Don’t ask me the ingredients, I’m too lazy to read the fine print.
And yes I KNOW Gazpacho is dead easy to make, and yes I KNOW exactly how to make it and I’ve made it lots in the past, but this store bought kind is almost as good, so good… it might even be better? Plus even with inflation it’s cheaper than making it yourself (in London, I mean, it might be different if you’ve got access to a local farm stand, ideally in rural Ontario, god I miss beef steaks tomatoes).
And by the way no one’s paying me to write this. I’m just lazy. And hot. In the peri-menopausal sense.
So if you can get it… get it. And if you can’t make your own.
I suspect it would be good with vodka, if you’re that way inclined. Anyway, you’re welcome.
Delicious, a dream even with beef steak tomatoes.
You had me at vodka.