Cantaloupe and Tomato Gazpacho, a Summer Soup

          It was a proper, memorial day this past weekend; the sun was shining, the temperature was up in the 70's and 80's, and there was an occasional cool breeze off the water. I know about the breeze because when I wasn't pulling consecutive doubles at the restaurant, I sat on the pier and ate a protein bar, and watched the tourists and the fishermen at the town landing hauling their boats in and out of the water. I needed the money so I was happy to work 50 hrs in 4 days. Trial by fire is the name of the game in a restaurant. However, a night or two before the holiday weekend, I had a summer revelation; I remembered cold soup. Hence today's post; Cantaloupe and Tomato Gazpacho.


          This soup is the quintessential summer soup. Gazpacho has about as many variations as there are days in summer, so feel free to be creative, but this is how I got it going:


1 cantaloupe, skin off, de-seeded, cut into chunks
3 hothouse tomatoes, skin off, de-seeded
1/4 onion, chopped
1 shallot, chopped
1/2 red pepper, chopped
1 lemon, juiced
small bunch of basil, chopped
crusty bread
olive oil
salt/pepper
dash worchestershire sauce (optional)


          Cut an x in the tomatoes and dump them into a pot of boiling water for less than a minute. Take them out, run under water, and remove the skin. Clean your basil. Take a good handful of your crusty bread and soak it in water.

          Next, cut the tomatoes in quarters, takes the seeds out over a bowl/fine mesh strainer, and reserve the juice for later.

          Cube the cantaloupe, tomatoes, onion, shallot, and pepper. Throw all the bits in the food processor, or whatever you have, and pulse it all together. Add the juice of the lemon, the bread, the basil and, most likely, all the reserved tomato juice. Stream in the olive oil. Add salt and pepper to taste, and perhaps the worchestershire sauce if you dig that too.