happiness is a cold soup

i know that i promised not to write about food here anymore, and i know i even started a whole other blog and then promptly abandoned it (sadly!  but given my lack of kitchen equipment, it would have to be retitled "baking with cari", an activity i wouldn't wish on any person with taste buds).

but is there anything better than cold soup on a hot summer evening?  (okay, so john travolta and olivia newton-john would beg to differ, but i bet they never had a truly terrific bowl of cold soup).  the cold soups (iced soups, soups glacées if you're one of those frenchified snobs) in question here are gazpacho and cucumber-mint soup.

so first, gazpacho.  the relationship of the french to gazpacho is a little like the relationship of the united states to mexican food:  they stole it from their southern neighbors and transformed it into something no self-respecting spaniard would call gazpacho; and the french love gazpacho even more than their own national food (an honor reserved for a number of non-french foods that i can count on my thumb and forefinger).  the real beauty of gazpacho is that it's about as hard to make as a smoothie.  ingredients, blender, done.

and then, iced mint-cucumber soup.  again, as easy as dumping about 5 ingredients in a blender. cucumber, double cream, olive oil, shallots, lemon juice, mint.  so 6 ingredients.  blender.  deliciousness.

and finally, and this is really my last food-related thing, i just saw one of my favorite french tv chefs make a really simple banana-zucchini bread.  frankly i don't like bananas or zucchinis, but this bread looked really good.  (this might have something to do with a memory of a zucchini fritter with jam so delicious that i ate myself literally, literally, sick on them.)  anyway,  banana zucchini bread.  maybe i'll have to try baking with cari after all . . .