Rick Nichols: A sweet, savory take on gazpacho

The rubber gasket was split in half on my Braun blender Sunday afternoon (as Spain was winning its first World Cup), and still I soldiered on - whizzing yet another batch of Louisa Shafia's watermelon gazpacho.

I've made it four times now, in less than four weeks - serving it for dinner on our porch, gifting it to the in-laws in Cleveland, making it in a leaky Cuisinart in Oneonta, N.Y., showing my grandson, Sebastian, (now 11) that you can "cook" amazing soup without turning on the stove.

The 100-degree heat, of course, was catalytic: This is light, coolly refreshing soup, the sweet watermelon thinning it; toasted almonds subbing for starchy bread and adding a nutty note; a spoonful of smoked paprika, supplying a touch of mystery and keeping it on the savory side.

But the heat wave also highlighted a seasonal dilemma; the desire for gazpacho often arises before the local tomato crop is at its peak of flavor.

This can give (and has given) birth to unfortunate improvisations - stewy, porridge-like gazpacho, for one, its liquid supplied, the horror!, by canned tomato juice.

But it can also unleash creative solutions. In Spain's western Extremadura, where I once had a transcendent gazpacho (with white bread pressed into the sides of the bowl), the tomato-cuke blend was given a flavor boost by a shred of local ham.

A centerpiece mound of crabmeat enhances the yellow tomato gazpacho at Old City's Amada. On the Main Line, in the dining room called Tierra (where Savona is today), chef Alan Segel ennobled his silky take on gazpacho with a chilly dollop of celery sorbet. Grapes can show up. Or diced avocado.

Gazpacho is not for purists. In fact, the soup began life as a bready gruel in Spain. It wasn't until the 1700s that tomatoes from the New World put a blush in its cheeks.

Still, I'd never encountered a watermelon gazpacho until I opened Lucid Food, the recent "eco-conscious" cookbook by Louisa Shafia. (This week Wegman's started pitching a version, albeit a dessert-y one, redolent of papaya and pineapple.)

Shafia hangs her hat in New York these days, where she ran Lucid Food catering before turning to culinary teaching and food writing (One outlet? RachelRay.com).

But she's a bona fide child of Philadelphia. She went to Germantown Friends, did time in the aisles of Weaver's Way Co-op working off the required co-op hours for her mother, Georgia. She even did a stint as an editor for NPR's Fresh Air, produced by WHYY.

Along the way she tried her hand at acting, and spent a semester in Madrid, then cooked at Marcus Samuelsson's Aquavit, and Roxanne's, the fine-dining raw-food room in northern California.

Thus, the recipe for her watermelon gazpacho: One part, hanging in Madrid; one part cheffing; and one part raw food.

It became a signature dish of her Lucid Food catering, which has catered to, among others, actor Isabella Rossellini, and the writing team from The Colbert Report.

It was served, on occasion, she says, in shot glasses topped with vodka - a lighter take on the Bloody Mary.

So far I've been making mine without booze, and now that I've looked more closely at the cookbook recipe, I've been making it wrong: It calls for a fine dice of sweet onion and cucumber added as a garnish; I've been sticking the onion, and a whole cucumber straight into the blender, along with everything else.

Actually, it doesn't bother the soup a whit: The onion plays nicely with the garlic, and the frothed cucumber airs the stuff out even more.

I played around intentionally, too, adding olive oil to Shafia's recipe, and sherry vinegar (two of the classic Spanish ingredients). I used half smoked paprika, and half Hungarian sweet paprika. I used sliced almonds instead of whole ones (almonds are the base of Spain's white gazpacho), because I had them in the cupboard.

By my third outing, I wasn't measuring anything - chunking up quartered watermelon, tossing in handfuls of grape tomatoes, drizzling in olive oil and two vinegars to taste.

This news brought an atta boy from Shafia.

To which I'll just say: Thanks, Louisa, for providing me my new signature bowl.

Makes 4 servings

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6 cups coarsely chopped

   seeded watermelon

5 ripe tomatoes, cored and

   quartered

1 rounded tablespoon sweet

   smoked paprika

1 clove garlic, smashed

1/2 cup whole or slivered

   almonds, toasted

1/4 cup sweet white or red onion,    finely diced, plus more for garnish

1 cucumber, seeded and

   diced, plus some for garnish

1 tablespoon balsamic

   vinegar

2 tablespoons sherry vinegar

1 teaspoon chipotle sauce (or a few dashes of Tabasco)

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Salt, to taste

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1. Blend 2 cups of the watermelon in a blender until liquid. Add the rest of the watermelon, the tomatoes, paprika, garlic, almonds, onion, cucumber, balsamic vinegar, sherry vinegar, and chipotle sauce and blend until smooth. Transfer the soup to a bowl and taste and season with salt.

2. Chill for an hour before serving. Garnish with a spoonful of the onion and cucumber dice.

Per serving: 343 calories, 7 grams protein, 33 grams carbohydrates, 21 grams sugar, 24 grams fat, no cholesterol, 167 milligrams sodium, 6 grams dietary fiber.EndText