Gazpacho is the Answer

So this year I planted only heirloom tomatoes in the garden, not really thinking about the fact that they fruit really late in the growing season. Therefore I went through the majority of the summer with amazing and abundantly beautiful tomato bushes filled with massive green tomatoes which clearly were not going to be ready to eat until summer was over. Not only was I going to have to wait I would also have about 40 pounds of tomatoes come ripe all at the same time.



Last year I ate the most wonderful tomatoes that we got from Diablo Market in LaFayette in the East Bay. They had incredible, deep, intense tomato flavor. They were sweet! There was a sign that said they'd been "dry farmed" so I googled it. As usual I chose to do the things that were the most easily doable. In October i planted a crop of hairy vetch in the bed that the tomatoes go into every summer. In January I got out my Brandywine and Mortgage Lifter seeds I saved from last year and put them in little dirt filled containers - about 70 of them - to survive the winter outdoors. In Los Angeles it's not that hard to do, and I ended up with 70 little plants.  Since I only have room to plant about 8 plants I give lots of them away.



End of March or beginning of April I cut back the hairy vetch so that it becomes mulch, and then I plant about 5 plants 3' apart. This year a I also threw some vetch seeds into the bed just because it's pretty and I thought it might keep the tomatoes company. I watered about once a week at the root for an hour. Lo and behold the bushes were abundantly full and lots and lots of tomatoes appeared. Eventually I stopped watering thinking that I could force the ripening of the fruit, but it just stayed green and got bigger.



Apparently I had over looked the fact that both of these varieties take a little longer to ripen. So I had about 60 pounds of giant tomatoes ripen simultaneously over the last two weeks of August. They're really sweet and the tomato taste is intense.



I made a lot of tomato and burrata salads. I made a lot of sandwiches that were elevated to levels of deliciousness not previously experienced with a pedestrian store bought tomato. I considered sauce, but having never made it with fresh tomatoes I was wary of making a mess with all that juicy fruit.



So it struck me that gazpacho would be a very good way to go since it uses real tomatoes and requires deep flavors to be really good. Several things stood in my way 1) I don't know how to make it and 2) I don't typically like gazpacho because I think soup should be served hot and 3) I have no idea how to make it.



But I also had 6 pounds of gorgeous heirloom tomatoes going the wrong direction in my refrigerator so after looking at several recipes and realizing that this is a Spanish soup made with wet bread when it's done in the classical way (I'm sorry but blech), I decided to free style.



Because of that there will be no pictures of my journey to this bowl of gazpacho. My tiny kitchen looked like it had been the scene of slaughter. I started chopping the tomatoes into a large mixing bowl so that I keep the juices and the seeds. Because they were so ripe I ended up mushing them up with my hands. Because I did that pulp and juice were everywhere. Oh well - it was fun!



Next I peeled and chopped an English Cucumber into 1/4" cubes, threw the chunks in a bowl and salted them to sweat them while I diced and chopped a red onion, a red bell pepper and yellow bell pepper. I threw the cucumber, a bit of onions and peppers into a food processor and just let it rip. I tasted the mush occassionally in order to add more onion and add salt. After it was smooth I put it in another big bowl to rest and enjoy the salt.



Now the tomatoes took a spin in the food processor which took them from gloppy to glossy with a little froth. I salted them at this time too because tomatoes love salt, but I wanted to be careful not to kill the intense tomato flavor I had elicited in this fruit through my almost non-watering (or lazy gardening, call it what you will).



So now I have a big bowl of pureed vegetables and another big bowl of tomato puree (which had both been poured from yet other bowls and now basically every available counter space is covered with stuff) and I get out the blender. I'm thinking that only the high "liquefy" setting is going to get me where I want to go as far as texture.



You see part of the reason I have never liked gazpacho is the texture. Too often I have been served a bowl of what basically looks and feels in my mouth like pureed vegetables with a separation of pulp and fluid occurring in the bowl that makes it abundantly clear that I am, in fact eating pureed vegetableswith chunks in it. Not soup.



Most of the time I prefer my soup hot and smooth, preferably made with vegetables sauteed in butter and and finished with a dollop of cream. But these particular tomatoes are so freaking tasty, so alive (I'm gushing I know, but they are really that good) I couldn't imagine subverting them to the heaviness of cream.



So I decided I would use the blender to marry the veggies to the tomatoes with some red wine vinegar, some balsamic vinegar and some lemon juice. I had a lot of tomato puree and a lot of veggie puree so I did it in batches of 4 ladles of tomato and 2 ladles of veggies, then I added 1 Tbls of Red Wine Vinegar and 1 capful of 16 year old balsamic, some Aleppo Chili flakes because I wanted some heat but didn't want to get dressed and go to the market for Tabasco, and a bit of salt and pepper to taste. I got the blender going and as I took the speed higher and higher toward liquefy, I drizzled about 2 TBLS of this awesome Olive Oil my friend Johnny brings me from the Fairway Market on the east coast.



I watched the soup emulsify to a creamy texture and gave it a taste - yum! It tasted bright and creamy and light in the mouth. It's delicious tomato-eyness but there's also a hint of the peppers and the cucumber and under that the onion. I don't taste the chili flakes, but that might be a good thing. Maybe they're one of those flavors that show up the next day? The next batch, because I definitely have to do this in batches there is so much of it, I do exactly the same way, but I add 1/4 cilantro leaves, just to see what that will do.



The stuff in the blender becomes a kind of alarming color, but the flavor deepens even more. I can't taste cilantro specifically but it is for sure making an appearance. I spend about half an hour tasting the first batch and then the second batch and then decide to pour them together into another big bowl. Blended they create baby bear's bowl - the one that's perfect that you just want to eat all up.



I finish the last bit of blending and get exactly the flavor that I'm aiming for and that gets added to the big bowl. I now have about a gallon of gazpacho. Really really good gazpacho. Garnishing with chopped bell peppers and avocado make it even more fun to eat.



I also have bowls on every surface, a food processor and blender that need to be cleaned and I have to wipe off the walls and the floors, but I would totally do this again. I just need a bigger kitchen and a super size Vita-mix blender.

Ludobitten

Friday night I dined at Ludobites 5.0 which is currently at Gram and Papa's in downtown LA. It's the summer tour and a very hard reservation to get so I was excited and enthusiastic. We had an 8:30 reservation and I ate lightly all day so I would have lots of room.

I'd eaten Ludo's food at Breadbar a couple of times and during the first appearance at Gram and Papa's in May. I'm a fan. One of the things that makes me a fan is when I feel like the chef is having fun in the kitchen. I like it when my mind is blown, or when I take a bite and my eyes close and my head tilts back and my mouth smiles involuntarily. Last night held several of those moments.

When I arrived I was hungry, like scary hungry. The kind of hungry that makes me kind of cranky. I was also tired because it had been a long day that started with a good work out since I knew I was going to be going on a culinary adventure. The kind of work out that makes you ravenous. My 5 companions were equally hungry and tired and so it was good that they cracked our wine and got it poured out quickly. I brought a 2007 Old Shin Bone from Peterson Winery in Sonoma - one of my favorite wineries in the region, and although I opened it a couple of years early it was completely drinkable and delicious.

I can be like that with waiting. I look under dirt to see if the seeds have sprouted, cut into meat on the grill to see if it's done, open the oven and pull out the cupcakes to see how they're doing.

I'm working on the concept of delayed gratification - but it's really hard.

We started with 2 orders of the Vadouvan Naan Bread with salted coconut butter. The bread had a sweet saltiness that provided the perfect vehicle to get the coconut butter into my mouth. Praise Jesus, let the games begin. The bread was on the table for less than 1 minute and seemingly evaporated, thankfully the Cheese Cupcakes frosted with Chicken Liver Pate with a glistening puddle of kumquats was close on the heels of the naan. There were cornichons in there too although I didn't actually see them because we fell upon the cupcakes like a flock of seagulls. The cupcake was moist and the cheese was subtle, the pate was creamy and the whole mouthfull was surprisingly light, completely delicious.By now we'd opened the 2005 Cask Rubicon Cabernet Sauvignon - mmmmmmmmm - to coincide with the arrival of the Poached Egg, Potato Mousseline with Chorizo condiment.

I was getting into the rhythm having sated the extreme hunger I'd walked through the door with and although we'd ordered three so they were split between two people it was only my love for my friend Adi that allowed him to get a few bites. I wanted to dig into that bowl like a real life Oliver Twist, you know singing about how great the food is while hunched over it so that no one else can get their spoon in your bowl.

After that rich and decadent deliciousness I was starting to feel a little bit full (okay I totally could have stopped eating), but I was also starting to get food drunk, and yes wine drunk so when the Raw Wagyu Beef in dried Miso, Peanut Vinaigrette, Candied Walnuts and Mint arrived I thought I'd try just a small bite because I was, you know, full. Only the beef was so light and fresh and beautifully seasoned, and all those flavors in my mouth at the same made me so happy, that I just had to have 5 or 6 more bites.

Now I was really and truly full. Which was why I was discomfited when the Hot Foie Gras with Chinese Barbecue Sauce and Miso Eggplant arrived. I mean I'm starting to get uncomfortable and considering that I might be too full for foie gras. That just doesn't happen. Someone orders another one more and it mocks me when it arrives because I'm now dancing around painfully full.

We still have the Grilled Octopus, Oregano, Grilled Hazelnut Polenta, Pineapple Aioli, Piment D'Espelette Gelee and Black Sea Bass, Cauliflower, Black Garlic and Yellow Panna Cotta which has just arrived on the table and the Goat Cheese Soup, Bacon Lardo, Tofu, Green Apple, Frisee Salad, the Confit Pork Belly, Raw Chacroute Thai Style with Mustard Ice Cream AND the Steamed Duck, Lemon Verbena, Crispy Skin Puree, White Peach, Radish and Balsamic to come.

I should stop eating and definitely stop drinking because I'm no longer buzzed I am full on happy drunk. I want to hug everyone, especially Ludo and thank them for sharing this experience with me.

Even the woman at the table next to ours who is braying with laughter that cuts through the cacophany of a packed Friday night, like the background of one of those 60s movies that take place in a bar populated with broads one would call "frowsy," cannot annoy me.

It would be great to be able to sit in a barcalounger to finish the meal because I am ready to lay down. It's 11:00 and we're still eating. I just need a little nap and I'll be good to go. Really. Instead we just keep eating and I know that it was really good, but I don't think that food tastes the same when you're stuffed as when you're starving.

Much like going to the grocery store I think that sitting down to eat a spectacular meal is best done on a stomach that has had a snack and knows how to pace itself. So next time, and there will be a next time at the end of this month, I will make sure that I am not starving and that we will not order every single thing on the menu since I feel compelled to eat everything and restraint has never entered into the experience.

I would never claim to a be a food critic - I am quite certain that they do not get drunk and inhale their food, but I do know what works for my partifuclar taste buds and I will try to share those experiences in a meaningful way here.

Bottom line: Ludo makes food that makes me very happy!