Gazpacho, a Spanish word, typically means a cold soup with vegetables. The original version consisted of veggies pounded with bread, garlic (a must!), olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper, which was then thinned with water. Gazpacho with tomatoes is relatively new, believe it or not. Here I’ve used lemon and/or lime instead of vinegar, and saved tomatoes to slice and plate with fresh mozzarella.
Monthly Archives: August 2012
Lentils, Sweetest of Delicacies
By Debra Stark
Martha Rose Shulman, food writer for The New York Times, says that if you have lentils, you have dinner. She’s right, and lentils have been around forever. In the Old Testament, Esau traded his inheritance to Jacob for a bowl of lentil soup. Believed to have originated in central Asia, lentil seeds have been found around the world, some in Middle Eastern agricultural villages that date back to 6,000 BCE, and in Egyptian tombs to 2,400 BCE. Did you know that in those days, lentils were not only eaten, but used as packing material? It seems 2.8 million pounds of red lentils cushioned an obelisk that traveled from Egypt to the Vatican City where it still resides in front of St. Peter’s Basilica!
Oldie but goodie
What kind of salmon are you eating? Thomas May, a writer we’ve met at trade shows, wrote an article entitled, Farmed Salmon Found Higher in Pollutants, which says don’t eat salmon raised in ocean net pens because their diet of concentrated fishmeal pellets contains high levels of toxic chemicals which may pose a health threat to humans. In addition, those farm-raised salmon (also called ‘Atlantic Salmon’) don’t get the same exercise the wild critters do, and are flabby with the wrong kind of fat. Studies show Atlantic salmon don’t have the healthy omegas their natural counterparts do.
