Hippie/Freeloader/Treehugger Watermelon Gazpacho

Barbara Streisand and Kris Kristofferson copulating in a “Star is Born”. The most disturbing sight I’ve ever seen on celluloid. It brought on a gruesome nightmare for me.

Naturally, this aversion to the long haired of the world stems directly from my parents, who were two complete flower children themselves. Darwin and Freud would both say that is my biological duty to despise everything that they believed in. So who am I to try and tame the laws of science and psychiatry? My natural instinct is to despise hippies and treehuggers, but to be honest with you, I get on grand with them. Just as long as they don’t mention geo politics, the welfare state, drugs, drink, sex offenders, albino midgets and my other great passion in life, food.

Many treehuggers would have you believe otherwise,  butI have yet to be convinced that there is anything inferior or indeed evil about genetically modified or non organic grub. I do not think it necessary to only produce free range chickens and I reckon farming fish is a wicked idea. And it is not that I am so stubborn that I won’t bow down to other theories that are not my own. While it may have taken me a long time, I have finally accepted that Vegetarianism is really not such a bad thing. As omnivores, we consume too much meat at the moment. No harm in eating a little less really. But I’d be buggered by a piebald if I do the whole true blue veggie vibe or end up becoming a complete spacer like one of these lads.

So here’s a wee nod to those who don’t eat the meat.  A recipe mailed to me a year ago by a very angry veggie – YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE! It’s actually delicious though and a complete spazmoid could very easily make it.

TREEHUGGER’S WATERMELON GAZPACHO

INGREDIENTS:

• 7 cups finely diced seedless watermelon (or get a normal one and take them out, a tad annoying)
• 1 medium cucumber. Peel it and then deseed it, then dice it up.
• 1/2 red bell pepper, finely diced, again keep the seeds out
• 1 tablespoon of freshly chopped basil
• 1 tablespoon of chopped flat-leaf parsley
• 3 tablespoons red-wine vinegar
• 2 tablespoons minced shallot
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 3/4 teaspoon salt

METHOD:

Mix it all up in a big bowl. Then take about three cups at a time and whiz in a blender to the kind of consistency that you like. Then transfer that to another big bowl. Repeat til you’re done.

SERVE WITH:

Even for veggies, this would be regarded as a starter. Try pouring them into shot glasses and lash them out. Crack open some bubbly with them.