Watermelon Gazpacho

Half-price watermelon too good to pass up, but also too big to use.  It sat on my kitchen island too long.  I made about a third of it into watermelon gazpacho, maybe use some more for a picnic and try to find space in the refrigerator.

Watermelons seem to have gotten into high-tech consumer design in their own way.  They apparently come from enormous farms in Mexico, transported in bulk, though there's probably smaller scale farming just a county or two away from me.  Those black seeds that we used to spit out are no more, which makes running through a blender for gazpacho a lot easier.  The rind has gotten much thinner.  The shape remains oval, though less elongated than the watermelons of years past.  Hard to assess the sweetness once blended with other things but the final soup was not particularly sweet, in fact not distinctive in taste at all.

Blending the watermelon in a standard blender did not go well.  The large chunks never reliably nudged their way to the four tine whirly blade.  Food processor would have been better with

a broad base and wide blade.

First time I ever made this.  There were a lot of recipes, all with watermelon as the dominant source of liquid, though amounts vary.  Mine had tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers but these also vary.  Olive oil and vinegar seem constants.  Seasonings are essential.  But my recipe came out something of a pink gruel.

With peak tomato season approaching, I think the traditional Spanish tomato gazpacho has enough advantages that I would choose this when I host guests for dinner.

Shattered Ladle

Periodically I make an elegant dinner, this one for a VIP visiting a sukkah for the first time.  Menu planning went thoughtfully, including an assortment of savory and sweet, regional classics gone global, followed by a dish and utensil washing orgy.  I made Harira, that lentil-chickpea soup of Morocco of not subtle though not pungent spicing which traditionally gets served when the sun goes down during the month of Ramadan.  While the sukkah depends on its flimsiness it can also be an elegant setting merging teetering furnishings with elegant decorations and elaborate service.  I took out my fleishig tureen for this occasion.

I forget where I purchased this or for how much.  While I rarely make a soup that warrants special service, this harira did.  The tureen has a simple round appearance with handles.  It usually sits in the far reaches of a cupboard, needing a step stool for retrieval.  Its lid handle illustrates its simplicity and discounted nature, snapping off shortly after purchase and neer achieving restoration with multiple attempts at superglue.  This time I used rubber cement with a better result, though again temporary as it separated again when washed.  While I rarely use this item for its intended purpose, I always regarded it among my favorites for its appealing visual simplicity and its function.

To my horror, the porcelain ladle fell from counter height and shattered beyond more superglue.  A search of amazon.com offered a comparable ladle for $27 which may be my best option.  But with the lid handle repetitively breaking it may be better just to get a new tureen, though I plan to keep what I have, repair the lid handle once more, and keep the option of a ladle replacement, which from economics may still be the best option, at the forefront.

Replacing the tureen might be another option. There are elegant tureens, many displayed at the Campbell Soup Museum, now closed but with the tureen collection now partially displayed at Winterthur.  Elegant ones made of bone china can be purchased for four figures.  For much less I can replace one on eBay, though to keep it  kosher, it would need to be new.  I'd like a new one, but for as often as I use it, replacing the ladle and offering the lid holder a trial of Gorilla glue may still be the best options.  I will make soup for Thanksgiving, not that I really want to make soup as much as force a decision.