A Recipe You Won't See on Giada (Unfortunately)
Wednesday, August 30, 2006

At this moment in the small town of Bunol, Spain, a small town nestled between Madrid and Barcelona, the best Gazpacho recipe in the known world is currently being made. It’s a rather simple unforgettable recipe handed down to each generation. And no one tries to keep it a secret. Hell they even told me what it was and I am here to share with you.

INGREDIENTS
100,000 medium sized tomatoes
30,000 or so of your closest friends
Place tomatoes into center of town via large trucks
Pour tomatoes into the middle of the street
Take 3 – 4 tomatoes
Soften tomato by crushing slightly (crushed is preferred to puree or whole)
At exactly noon on the last Wednesday of August take tomatoes and toss
Continue to throw tomatoes, mincing your neighbors as they pulp you
Reach down and pick tomatoes up off the cobblestone
Lob tomato in whatever direction you see fit
Repeat as desired or one hour, which ever comes first
At end of hour, the 30,000 cooks jump into the adjacent river to clean up
The husks of the tomatoes are then hosed out of the town square into a waiting bucket. Add parsley
Chill for 365 days and enjoy.

The citizens of Bunol do this annually, and is called La Tomatina. I have no idea why they do it, nor do I want to know. I just want to do it. I knew this, along with the running of the bulls, getting drunk at a soccer game, plunging my ass into a hot spring in Iceland during winter, getting a stiff neck at Wimbledon, sampling Amsterdam brownies, and pining for the fjords of Finland were things that I need to do before I leave.

Last night, around 2300 (that’s the way they say it here – when in Germany do as the Romans do) I was bounding about on the net and came across the story. Excitement rippled through me, one of my quests was going to come off my list. I catapulted off the bed, going through my limited wardrobe to see what articles of clothing I was willing to destroy and wondering where I can get myself swimming goggles. No one in their right mind, or even a diluted mind wants acidic tomato juices seeping into their eyes. Things picked, ideas in place where to get goggles, I went back to the computer to see when this thing was taking place.

And as you all can figure out it was today (30 August) noon Spain time, which was an hour behind me. I plugged into Google Maps how long it would take to get from Wiesbaden to Bunol, Spain. 23 hours. I can do this. I don’t need no damn sleep, I don’t have a car, and no stores are currently open where I can get protective eyewear. (Do you all know how hard it is to type goggle and google in the same paragraph and not screw it up.) I said to myself, I could do this. I can do this if I could cause the world to rotate the other direction, stop time, teleport, come up with a shitload of money or become the first person to physically experience the string theory.

Needless to say I am still here but there is a big red circle on next year’s calendar around the last Wednesday in August. And I am here to tell you all to get your orders in now for same delicious Gazpacho. I’ll see what I can do to meet your request.

posted by Don Taylor @ 4:25 PM,

3 Comments:

At 4:41 PM, Blogger Jessica said...

Giada is adorable!

I saw that tomato mess on the news.

 
At 10:03 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

FOOD!!! It's always about food with you! Explain before I get an aneurism and fall on the couch and set the Scoobies reeling for a couple of episodes.

 
At 11:05 PM, Blogger Don Taylor said...

Maybe because I usually write this at lunch, when I'm famished. That could be it.

 

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