Merriam-Webster has several definitions for home, including:
1. one’s place of residence,
2. the social unit formed by a family living together,
3. a familiar or usual setting : congenial environment ; also : the focus of one’s domestic attention
4. a place of origin
Los Angeles is the city I’ve continuously lived the longest, Miami is the city where I have the most family, and DC is the city that I call home. Until I lived in Japan, I rarely used the word “home” to describe a place other than where I was currently living. The family of my childhood was highly mobile, rarely staying in one place long. In the first 9 years of my life, we moved 5 times. Home, to me, was more defined by the things we put inside a space than the space itself. As Mos Def says,
“It ain’t where you’re from, it’s where you’re at.”
In Japanese, the words used for “hometown” generally also mean “birthplace.” While I was born in DC, I had come to think of LA as my hometown. I was completely unable to articulate the distinction, however, in my terrible Japanese and ultimately decided it was just easier to say that DC was my hometown.
The subtle effect of saying something out loud so many times has slowly made it so. I can’t really pinpoint the exact moment DC became my hometown but I’ve been away for 5 days and I’m really happy to be back home. Not just in my house with my stuff and my plants but in my city. Unlike it was in 1997, DC is no longer a city I am finally free of but a city I really look forward to return to.
Did I mention my plants? Well, the weather has finally really warmed up and I came back to a tomato plant just covered in perfect little red cherry tomatoes and three massive cucumbers. Since I did cucumber soup last week, I thought I’d keep the soup theme running and do gazpacho this week, complete with a kick-off quote from Manolo Blahnik:
“About half my designs are controlled fantasy, 15 percent are total madness and the rest are bread-and-butter designs.”
Think of this gazpacho as a bread-and-butter recipe. With just a little creativity (or perhaps some garlic and cilantro), it can become a controlled fantasy and with just a touch of daring (or perhaps a handful of chopped habanero peppers), it can become total spicy madness.
Gazpacho
Ingredients
- 2 good sized tomatoes (or equivalent amount of Roma or cherry tomatoes)
- 2 small or 1 large cucumber
- 1 small onion
- 2 red bell peppers
- 1/2 cup of red wine
- 1/3 cup of olive oil
- Salt and pepper to taste
Preparation
- Peel and dice the cucumber. Seed and dice the peppers. Dice the onion and tomatoes.
- Mix together in a large bowl with wine, olive oil and salt and pepper. At this point, the consistency is quite similar to a salsa cruda. If you’re a fan of chunky, you can stop here and put the gazpacho in the fridge. If you’re a smooth fan, process the mixture in batches until you hit your target smooth-osity and then stick it in the fridge.
- Chill thoroughly before serving (about 5 hours or so).
- Traditional garnishes include parsley and croutons. A nice dollop of sour cream might be nice. Or serve it completely naked – it is summer, after all..
Canon EOS 5D with 28-70mm zoom and ST-E2 set at 5.6 @180/ISO 200. 580 EX II to camera left at 1/8 power bounded off back wall. LumoPro 120 (optical slave) to camera right gridded and tinfoil-gobo’ed at 1/32 power. Tinfoil reflector for fill.
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