The way I’ve been eating lately feels like summer’s last hurrah. I picked the last of the beans from my garden, leaving a few to dry on the vine for seed. Here and there, there are rogue zucchini and cucumbers left lurking in the garden, and I’m just about ready to make green tomato chutney.

Happily, I’ve still got a big bowl of ripe tomatoes on the counter, so my summer harvest isn’t quite spent. Most of them are destined for roasting, if they don’t get eaten out of hand first. Some more were set aside for this week’s Cook the Book Fridays selection, gazpacho. David describes it as an “icy-cold liquid salad” and it’s a perfect description. It also showcases the late summer flavours of tomato, cucumber, and bell pepper in a way that makes me long for summer to begin all over again.

I skipped the traditional slice of bread that’s used to thicken the soup, for a gluten-free version, and I don’t think the consistency suffered that much. My breadless gazpacho is in good company, including
Martha Rose Shulman‘s version in the New York Times. I’ll make David’s version as written when I’m serving gluten-friendly eaters, but it’s nice to know it works so well for gluten-free eaters, too.

I served the soup in shot glasses, for a grazing Friday night supper. There was hummus and gluten-free crackers for M. Vegan. For me, the croutons for the soup became tartines, instead, slathered with goat cheese mixed with rosemary and oregano from my garden. And we both worked our way through a plateful of crudités.

I’m glad that squash and chanterelles are starting to appear, to assuage the pain of summer’s disappearance, otherwise, this meal would have put me into a winter’s-long funk. Even so, I’m glad there’s some soup left for tomorrow. I’m going to savour the last few tastes of summer for as long as possible.

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