A "Faux Flag" Quilt

My husband and I have been preparing to move from living on land to living on our sailboat over the course of the past 3 years, give or take a year.   There has been lots involved with downsizing certainly, and lots of emotional ups and downs with retirement and leaving good friends behind.  To take a bit of a break from all the more serious preparation involved with moving aboard, I launched into an enjoyable sewing project while we were still living on land.  Now, after two months of living onboard, it is finally complete.

"Disappearing 4 patch"

  I hand-stitched outlines of the colored blocks.

"Arkansas Snowflake"

I sewed a number of  projects for our last sailboat, SweetWater, which we sailed on Lake Superior.  When we bought a "new" (to us) boat, I was excited to sew something special for this boat, too.  I learned to sew from my mother and one of the things that she passed on to me was her enthusiasm for sewing something in preparation for upcoming special events.  In anticipation of this most recent "Moving Aboard Event" I decided to make a quilt for our stateroom bed.  The quilt would need to be lightweight since we are planning to follow the warmer weather south when the days grow cold in the north.  I wanted to have a nautical sort of theme, but not be especially "outspoken" about it.  (No giant anchors or 2' wide stripes, that sort of thing).  I also realized that with all the things I did have to do to prepare to leave land life behind, I couldn't afford to spend a lot of time making something extremely intricate.  I went to Pinterest to help me get ideas about the design.

"Ribbon Box"

Pinterest has been great for learning from other sailors about such things as cooking onboard, ports I'd like to visit by sailboat, products and habits that may make living aboard easier, as well as, sewing for the sailboat.  My husband had bought me a SailRite machine for my birthday last fall and I planned to bring that onboard with me.  My old Elna which I have had since 1976 was to be left behind in storage.  I decided it would be best if I did as much of the machine stitching using my Elna before leaving it behind in storage.  I figured that I would do the top-stitch quilting by hand after we moved aboard. So, my first task was to spend many pleasant evenings looking at as many quilt designs as I could find on Pinterest.

"Easy Bowtie"

I settled on a fairly simple color scheme that would "go" with the existing colors on the boat.  NORTHERN STAR is white with a navy stripe, navy canvas dodger and bimini and "sand" cockpit upholstery.  The cabin settees are a softer shade of sand.  So, I chose the sand color as the primary color and would use a lot of white and navy accents, with just a few splashes of red to make the quilt top "pop."  I'm a fan of the "less is more" concept.  I chose a natural cotton batting that was lightweight, and that would be rather forgiving--in other words, would not require quilting more than every 8".  We had enjoyed racing our last two sailboats on Lake Superior and so I decided that a signal or race flag theme would be my guide.

The problem with race flags, however, is that they are not all the same shape.  Some flags are long and narrow with swallowtails, some narrow burgees, some rectangular, etc.  When the blocks are not all the same shape,  it becomes a bit more challenging to put them together in a quilt, especially when the creator of that quilt wants to be able to put it together fairly quickly.  So, I scoured Pinterest for block patterns that just sort of reminded me of flags.  And I chose blocks that appeared to be reasonably simple to assemble. Thus, my title, "Faux Flag" quilt.  To make the project even easier for myself, rather than measure out all the pieces with a ruler,  as I've done in the past, I bought the templates for all the shapes I'd be using, with a 12" square being the largest.  I limited myself to blocks that I could make using those templates.  A couple of the very simple block designs were ones that I made up myself.

 I chose the fabrics I wanted to use, and cut out all of the pieces for the individual "faux flag" blocks first.  I actually sewed up a few more blocks than I would be able to use on the quilt so that I can use them later on pillows to decorate the bed. (My husband refers to those pillows as "Pillows that aren't really pillows).  I sewed each of those individual blocks together on my Elna and then laid them out on a bed, rearranging them until I liked the way they looked together.  I distributed the ones with bits of red somewhat evenly around the entire perimeter of the "flags."  Then, it was just a matter of connecting all of those blocks together with strips of white and to use the primary sand fabric for the center and outer edges of the quilt.  I used solid navy for the quilt backing and made navy piping to go around the entire quilt edge.  With that done, I no longer needed the sewing machine and would stitch the rest by hand while traveling or after we'd moved aboard.

Hand stitching in the cockpit

I have spent several pleasant evenings on the boat hand-stitching while listening to music as the sun goes down--a rather idyllic task when a bit of a breeze wanders through now and then.  It helped to spread the quilt across the cockpit table.    So now that this task is finished, it's time to get serious about replacing some zippers on the bimini, a somewhat less enjoyable task after this hand-quilting.   Sigh.

Hot Weather Dining- Minnesota Wild Rice, Chicken and Grape Salad

Okay, so here's the thing--I am a northern Minnesota woman.  I lived on the shore of Lake Superior, an area warmly referred to by Minnesotans as "Cooler by the Lake" said with a modest twinkle in one's eye.

I LOVED that cool summertime breeze off the Lake when I was working in my gardens on a hot day.  (Yes, it DOES get hot in northern Minnesota, too). In my opinion, that breeze was a piece of heaven on earth.  I have never been a really big fan of hot hot days and high humidity.  What then, am I doing living on a sailboat in a warmer part of the U.S. (where tulips and lilacs actually DO bloom in May--unheard of in Duluth) with every intention of moving father south as the seasons advance?  Can't explain it, but it IS the plan.

So, when 90 degree days hit here in Annapolis in May, I got just a little panicked.  I became fixated on these suddenly VERY important questions,  "Am I going to be able to adjust to this heat? To 85% humidity?  Where is my cool Lake Superior breeze?  Do I really belong here?"  By 10 AM, I was dreading the thought of heating up the boat by using the stove to make dinner later that evening.  Even the thought of eating hot food was a little distressing.  I needed a plan and I needed it fast. The plan I came up with was, if I could identify a list of dishes that both my husband and I agreed were really satisfying and that would require little use of the stove, I might just lick this "heat" thing.  I could look sweltering, sticky hot days squarely in the eye and say, "Hah!  I can do this.  You do not scare me."

My first "emergency heat-defying dinner" (EHDD "Ed" for short) was the St. Augustine Gazpacho that I wrote about.   My next choice for an EHDD was the classic Minnesota Chicken, Wild Rice and Grape salad.  For me, this was a no-brainer selection.  I've eaten this salad many times over the years; it's nutritious, tasty and if you buy baked chicken, it does not even require a stove to cook the chicken.  But, I discovered something rather interesting in Annapolis when I went to the grocery store to buy a can of pre-cooked wild rice.  I can find my way around a grocery store pretty well usually, but nowhere could I find canned wild rice.  So, I did the next best thing.

I found two middle-aged store representatives conversing (an important decision at hand, no doubt, such as "Avocados--next to the tomatoes or with the mango display?") and I figured they looked like they knew what was what, so I asked them, "Can you tell me where the canned wild rice would be?"  A pause while the two gentlemen's brows furrowed in synchrony. You know that look on a person's face when you KNOW the person you're talking to has absolutely no idea what you are talking about, but their standard of good customer service will not allow them to say, "I have NO idea what the heck you are talking about?" Instead, they quickly turned my question into a "contest" to see which of them could come the closest to satisfying this apparently odd customer request.  While one of the store representatives confidently led the way to a box of Uncle Ben's "Wild" Rice, the other one narrowed his eyes thoughtfully and blurted, "What would you use tha__?" before thinking better of his question and then with obvious relief,  reached for a tiny little 4 oz. package labeled "Minnesota Wild Rice:  Paddy Grown" and handed it to me.  What?  Are Annapolitans afraid to eat more than a miniscule amount of wild rice?  I could see I was going to be using the pressure cooker that evening after all.  Thank goodness I'd moved to Annapolis and brought my own supply of wild rice with me.
Wild rice grows WILD in Northern MN and is harvested by many Native Americans in canoes with two beater sticks as flails and a pole for propulsion. Hard working native people go out where the wild rice happily grows without extra encouragement from humans, and they very slowly travel through the shallow water, bending the stalks toward the canoe and thwacking it with two beater sticks to get the rice to fall into the canoe.
 There are those who do produce rice commercially, however, they are required to do it in the same manner in which it has been done for hundreds of years by native Anashinaabe.  They have discovered that it is a "crop" that does not like to bend itself to the will of humans.  Wild rice likes to grow where wild rice likes to grow.
The variation in wild rice (and there IS variation) comes from the manner in which the rice is parched.  Native peoples learned long ago that wild rice can be stored indefinitely if the seeds have been parched in fire.  In northern Minnesota, you may see freshly harvested and parched rice sold by the pound in various places as you drive along--sometimes at a gas station or other rural store.  A place along the road might sell chain saw carvings of bears and eagles or other artwork unique to northern Minnesota, and alongside their sign may be another little homemade sign that says --  "Wild Rice  $  /pound."  In the grocery stores, one can find a selection of wild rice with various labels on them, some with darker grains than others, from near black to medium brown.  And the labels proudly display exactly where the rice was harvested.

For the uninitiated, one should not expect wild rice to taste like white rice or brown rice.  Wild rice is, in fact, NOT rice at all.  It is a type of annual water-grass seed  "zizania aquatica." Regardless of that fact, no one complains about the name.  After all, we call LOTS of things by names which REALLY don't belong to them. Horse "shoes" for example or "Klondike" bar which everyone knows does NOT come from the Klondike.  "Recipe for success" when everyone knows there IS no recipe.  Nobody has ever really seen a "glass ceiling," but you would not want to argue its' existence.  Need I go on?   It's a little difficult to describe the flavor of wild rice, but I would say it has a subtle nutty flavor and if it is overcooked, the grain splits so that the inside extrudes, which is nice, as far as I'm concerned.

Minnesota  Chicken, Wild Rice and Grape Salad

So, in the end I cooked my own wild rice in the pressure cooker that evening.  Rather than 50 minutes, it cooked in 15 minutes under high pressure and done.  Voila!  I like to cook up a lot of wild rice at once and freeze it in 2 c. freezer boxes on the boat so next time I don't have to heat up the boat galley unnecessarily.  (We are fortunate to have a freezer on NORTHERN STAR.  If you do not, you could safely cook up however much you plan to eat in the next four days. as long as it's going to be refrigerated.)  I assembled the following recipe which keeps quite well, I would say, at least 3 days.  We also brought it to a little potluck Friday night get-together at the marina and shared it with others.  The participants said they liked it.  Kinda hard to tell.  After all, they hadn't come to the potluck knowing they would be expected to eat some "foreign" dish.

If you have an opportunity to buy wild rice in a package that is not ashamed to state on its' label that it was wild harvested in northern Minnesota I highly recommend you try it.  There are several wonderful recipes I would suggest that showcase the wild rice--Chicken Wild Rice soup (yummmm), Wild Rice bread and more.  So here it is:

Sailing to Thunder Bay? Bring a Chainsaw

Considering I have lived 15 years of my life within 3 hours of the Canadian border, I have only BEEN to Canada a handful of times, and two of those times were by sailboat.  My first trip into Canada was to Thunder Bay, Ontario, by car in 1999.  Thunder Bay

The 'Sleeping Giant' seen from Thunder Bay. Note the silhouette of head and arms crossed over chest, feet at far right.

is the closest Canadian city to Duluth, MN.  I was already 42 years old at the time.  Lest you think I had been opposed to leaving the country, I certainly was not.  I had been to Colombia, South America where I accompanied my uncle on horseback high into the Andes Mountains to visit his missionary posts.  I had spent time in the Soviet Union..… Leningrad, the “Venice of the North” where everyone walked arm in arm through the streets and over its' canals; Riga, where I sang American folk songs with Russian students riding the night train, witnessed a Latvian wedding on the shore of the Baltic Sea, as well as a man swimming in between ice floes; Moscow, where I was twice offered 50 American dollars for the homemade denim jumper on my back, where I met a young English speaking Russian woman on the street, and was invited to her home.  Because the family feared that their home was bugged by the KGB, they kept a faucet running to distort vocal sounds as we talked.  I had visited windswept areas of Ireland, explored castles in Wales and England, too.  But Canada?  I guess my attitude about travel to Canada had frankly heretofore been "Eh--why?" 

Nevertheless, to Canada we went that April and we visited the neighborhood of Thunder Bay where Finnish is still heard spoken on the streets.  At the Hoito, we had lunch and could have ordered the clabbered milk but did not.  I heard a story, though, about where clabbered milk came from and it went kinda like this.  Clabbered milk was accidentally "discovered" by a gangly (<--my own embellishment to the story) youth who had been told by his mother to put a little jug of fresh milk in their cold place (whatever that might have been) but who became distracted by those twin neighbor girls wearing new dresses (<--again, my embellishment) and did NOT do as he was told.  The jug of milk was discovered sometime later, just where he had left it by the door, where he had been when he noticed the two young ladies lift their skirts to walk down the muddy path in front of his home.  By then, the milk had taken on a "different" appearance.   In spite of its' appearance, the milk was included with the evening meal, perhaps to teach the boy a lesson about doing as he was told, or respecting his elders, some such thing (<---I'm pretty sure sure about that detail of the story.)  When the milk was found to be palatable in an "interesting" sort of way, his mother decided to try leaving some milk on the floor herself, one evening.  It was then that she noticed that the twin neighbor girls seemed to parade back and forth in front of their home a little more frequently than seemed warranted.  Hmmm...

There were other observations that I mentally tucked away about Canada, too.  One of the apparently necessary businesses of the Thunder Bay Finnish neighborhood was the family sauna.  Of course, I had already discovered while living and working in Duluth that there were many rural Finnish homes with little

This is the sauna we found tucked away on an island

outbuildings that contained a sauna just for that family's own use.  I had learned that sauna should be pronounced "SOW-nah".  AND, as a medical social worker in a rehab unit at that time in my life, I had learned that some Finlanders would never dream of putting a toe in bath water.  One of my patients, an elderly bachelor (whom some folks might describe as crotchety) vented his disgust at the thought of sitting down in "filthy bathtub water" after his nurse had innocently asked him whether he was ready for his bath.  I, as the rehab social worker, of course responded only with a slight nod of my head and a certain knowing and conspiratorial look.   He then proceeded to bemoan the "loss" of his brother to a woman who had "tricked him" into the institution of matrimony and therefore away from the home he and the brother had shared well into their middle age years.  "That woman" then swayed his brother into a bathtub and he had heard all about that after the deed was done.  He shook his head in utter disdain of his brother's fall from appropriate hygiene practices.  But I digress.

In the U.S. the standard neighborhood stores would probably include your grocery, barber, hardware store, pharmacy and restaurant.  In Thunder Bay, the family sauna seems to belong to that standard group of neighborhood businesses.  It was unclear to me though (and still is) whether 'family sauna' means that the entire neighborhood's families all use the sauna together?  Do they separate themselves by male and female?  By certain times of the day for different ages?  Are they all nude?  And if so, does this include the pastor of the congregation and his family?  Or do they all wear towels?   What would be appropriate etiquette for those awkward moments when your towel has fallen to the floor quite unexpectedly?  Are the Finnish people inherently less modest than, say, Norwegian Lutherans?  Are they afraid of showers?  Do any of them really WANT to jump into a cold lake after the sauna, or was that a tradition that accidentally began after a Finlander of some importance burned his touche by bumping against the hot rocks of the sauna?  These are questions I have but have never found just the right person to ask.

My most vivid memory of crossing over the border into Canada in 1999 is what I did NOT see......no Canadian Mounties.  Not a one.  I scoured the evergreen forests and hills between Grand Portage, MN and Thunder Bay—not a single handsome, red-jacketed law enforcement person on horseback.  But I do remember that as we approached the outskirts of Thunder Bay, I was pleased to announce to my husband, “Look, Canadian children!”  I guess I was expecting something more, though.   I’m sure they were very nice children, but they were just so.......well, so........ordinary.  I wouldn't have been able to pick out a group of Canadian children from their U.S. counterparts for anything.   In spite of that shortcoming, I found Thunder Bay to be historically interesting and a pleasant place to visit.

By the summer of 2011, we had been sailing the west end o Lake Superior for 9 years and were now on our second sailboat, SweetWater.  We were eager to sail to Canada for our two week vacation.  We knew from previous sailing trips that sailing as far as

Lake Superior depth just south of Isle Royale

Isle Royale (which belongs to Michigan, but is much closer to Minnesota) took us approximately 23 hours.  Since Thunder Bay was hours beyond that it was simply too far for a long weekend or even a week's vacation.  Our two week summer vacation would be the perfect window of time for such a trip. We wanted to sail someplace new and explore.  Another sailing couple who had become good friends were also planning a trip that summer, to the actual North Shore of Lake Superior in their boat, Ranger. We decided we would sail with them, or at the very least meet up with them and spend some of our time in Canadian waters together.  

We thought that sailing the North Shore of Lake Superior would likely be the closest to wilderness sailing that we would ever embark upon.  We would be beyond cell phone reception much of the time.   There are very few opportunities to buy groceries or

One of many lighthouses on the western shore of Lake Superior

diesel between Duluth and Thunder Bay, and those opportunities would become nonexistent somewhere beyond Thunder Bay. We provisioned accordingly and also prepared a rather extensive First Aid kit since we could be days from medical care as well.   We stocked up on limes for Gin and Tonics, my summertime treat.  We shared stories between the four of us about sailing the North Shore. Some of the stories sounded to me somewhat like old legends that could not possibly be true.  One story was that Canadians bring chainsaws with them when they sail.  Really?  A chainsaw on a sailboat?   Preposterous.  There were some places that we obviously had to visit, such as the Witching Tree, Thompson Island outside the bay that was called by the same name as the city, Thunder Bay.  We wanted to go as far as Rossport, Ontario if our two weeks was enough time for that.  We had heard too about some private little places that only sailors would know about--places tucked between some islands.   In one place we'd heard there was a sauna built by Canadian sailors in a very remote location. We wanted to find it.  

We chose the last week of July and the first week of August for our adventure, as those weeks had proven themselves to be the most reliable for finding good weather on cold Lake Superior.  We were right.  The weather was wonderful for the entire time.  We sailed

Approaching the breakwater, Grand Marais, MN

SweetWater straight through to Grand Marais, MN in one long overnight passage and then rested up there for a full day before heading on further up the shore.  We found the Witching Tree on the shore on the Grand Portage reservation

Voyageur/native canoe near the Witching Tree

land and saw a native style canoe traversing the area.  We continued on north to a protected anchorage enroute to Thunder Bay.  There we joined our friends and found that two other boats also selected that spot for their night's anchorage as well.   This anchorage was behind a small horseshoe island some distance from the mainland.  To our east there was nothing by water.  We had seen no sign of human habitation since we left Grand Marais, several hours earlier.  It was beautiful!  Enroute we hauled up buckets of water from the lake which was our drinking water and I would argue, the best tasting water that can be found anywhere in the world.  

We anchored in about 20' feet of water using our Bruce anchor and put out 50 feet of chain and another 70 feet of rope.  As would

Amy Brooks and Dale Hedtke, friends who sail on Ranger

become our pattern, we enjoyed the evening's happy hour on our friend's boat or maybe they dinghied over to our cockpit-- I don't remember exactly.  Dinner would come later in the evening--maybe we shared our dinner--maybe not. Regardless, the entire evening was spent in pleasant conversation and drinking in the beauty of the wilderness as darkness fell.  That evening marked the first evening that was truly spent relaxing on our summer vacation.  Ah, glorious!  The next morning, still basking in the sense of being on a wilderness sailing vacation, we were the last boat to pull up anchor to leave the anchorage.  Two of the boats must have left quite early in the morning.  My husband and I enjoyed our typical "boat breakfast"

SweetWater "boat breakfast"

which consists of coffee, of course and slow cooked oatmeal with various other grains and to which I add raisins and dates at the end of the cooking.  At the table in the cockpit, we add a little butter, some brown sugar and pecans. My mouth waters describing it.  It's not a breakfast that should be rushed.  Our friends departed while we waved to them over our hot cereal.  We were all alone.  It felt absolutely glorious!  We reveled in the feeling.  Why rush away from that experience?  We chose not to.

Eventually, we were motivated to pull anchor and head out toward the next destination which was Thompson Island.  As much as we enjoyed this anchorage, we anticipated another kind of special experience at Thompson Island.  We had been told that Thompson

Island had been "developed" by various Canadian sailors over the years.  It was a naturally occurring well protected inlet with deep water.  We had heard that the Canadians, without any government support or organizational backing, had built structures there, including a boardwalk sort of dock somehow clinging to a sheer cliff face which would be where we would tie up.  There was supposedly a sauna there, built only with whatever materials persistent sailors had carried with them on their sailboats to the site.  And even a steep set of steps one could climb with the aid of ropes attached to trees.  The climb would reward one with seating at the edge of the cliff and an overlook of the entire site.  Armed with this information, we anticipated another wonderful evening with our friends and other sailors that we would encounter there.  

When we pull up anchor, my husband goes to the bow while I handle the helm.  He gives me hand signals to direct me to slowly move the boat over the anchor, break it free and then he manually pulls it up.   An electric windlass would have made the process much easier, but this routine was certainly effective.  When SweetWater was directly over the anchor, my husband gave his full attention to hoisting the anchor.  The anchor did not want to come up.  "It's heavier than it should be.  It's not wedged in rock or anything--I can feel it move, but it just doesn't want to come."  He put every bit of energy into raising the anchor and yelled to me, "Ardys, come up here."  "Oh no....."  Instead of our anchor, we saw what

would be called 'slash' by Lake Superiorites.   One end of an extremely long log was visible at the waterline--the other end apparently still resting on the bottom of the lake at a 45 degree angle, some 30-40 feet away from the boat.  The log was quite securely lodged within the crook of the anchor.  SweetWater was effectively attached to the floor of the lake.

"What do we do now?"  We knew immediately that the simplest solution would be quite costly--cutting the rode where the chain attached to the rope.  We would lose not only a 35# anchor but 50' of chain rode.  Our remaining anchor was more of a lunch hook and had never been used as a primary anchor.  Without this anchor that had now become one with the log, we may be forced to abandon the remainder of our sailing vacation.  The Captain - "We could call to Ranger, but even if they are close enough to hear our transmission, what are they going to do about this?"  More ruminating between us.  He - "We are on our own here."  She - "Eventually someone else will come here to anchor."  (Ya, maybe today, maybe next week).  He - "And when they do--again, what are they going to do about it?"  Together - "If only we had a chainsaw."  A chainsaw!

"Maybe a Canadian with a chainsaw will come here to anchor," I said.  "Do you think they really all carry chainsaws," he questioned.  I thought back to one of anchorage mates from the night before.  A person can hope, right?  This is

where my wiseness in marrying my husband becomes evident.  He lassoed the end of the log and put that line on a winch.  He then raised the log, which theoretically would leave the anchor free to come loose.  Theoretically, is the key word in that sentence.  The anchor was firmly dug into that log.  We cast about to find something on the boat that was heavy enough that we could use as a sledge hammer to break the anchor away from the log.  Nothing.  Nada.  Zilch.  Sad to say, besides NOT bringing a chainsaw, neither did we carry a sledge hammer onboard. What kind of sailors were we anyhow....sailing into the wilderness without power tools or major destructive equipment?  After some casting about, my husband settled upon the boat pole and used it to push at the log and anchor until ultimately the anchor was jogged free so that it could be pulled aboard.  Now to get rid of the wooden "anchor" that was holding the boat in place.   We DID have heavy duty knives for cutting away rigging onboard.  And with that we were loose.    Note to self:  Chainsaw--bring a chainsaw when we sail the Canadian shore.

St. Augustine Avocado Gazpacho

My husband and I moved from Duluth, MN into our new home on April 15th.  Our home is a 43' sailboat that is currently sitting in the Annapolis Landing Marina on Back Creek, Annapolis, MD. There has been LOTS to do in the past month and we have so much yet to learn about this new (to us) boat. But that will be the subject of other posts.

Castillo de San Marcos,  built 1572 St. Augustine, FL 

One of our tasks has been to change our state of residence.  We don't own a house or land anymore in any state and so, last week, we drove from Annapolis to Green Cove Springs, FL with our faithful Border Collie, Jax in the back seat.   It was in Green Cove Springs where we gave up our MN residency to become residents of Florida.   While we live on our sailboat, we will use a consistent mailing address by virtue of a mail forwarding service, St. Brendan's Isle located in Green Cove Springs.

 There is a lot to be said for Florida.  <HOT>  We visited St. Augustine which was really interesting <HOT> and we drove through the Ocala National Forest <HOT> on our way to visit my sister who lives in The Villages <HOT>.  A highlight there was an airboat ride on Lake Panasoffkee <HOT> to see alligators and birds.   We only saw a couple of alligators because mid-day <HOT> they apparently like to hang out in shaded mud which I understand completely. 
So after returning to Annapolis <HOT> late in the day yesterday I was in no mood <HOT> to make or to eat hot food.  Gazpacho was just the ticket.  I found a recipe on AllRecipes.com and with the exception of a few minor tweaks on my part, I give credit for this recipe to whomever originally posted it online. This is wonderful gazpacho!  My version of it follows.  I highly recommend it.

Avocado Gazpacho

2 1/2 c. Spicy V-8 juice
2 1/2 c. vegetable broth (I just used bouillon)
1 large tomato, diced
1 14 oz can diced tomatoes (with basil & garlic) with juice, 
1 carton grape tomatoes, chopped (cuz that's what we had)
4 large avocados, peeled, pitted and cut into bite-sized pieces

The last of the Avocado Gazpacho

1/2 large cucumber, peeled and diced
1/2 large green bell pepper, chopped
1/2 large red bell pepper, chopped
1/4 c. extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 large red onion, finely diced
2 lemons, juiced
Handful of chopped fresh cilantro (I really like cilantro, so this is quite a bit more than the original recipe called for)
2 T. white wine vinegar
A few dashes of Tabasco sauce
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.  (I started with perhaps 1/2 tsp of salt and 1/4 tsp of pepper and then adjusted further from there.)

Mix all of the above ingredients together in a large bowl. Cover and chill for 3 hours or overnight to allow the flavors to blend.  ENJOY!

Servings: Original recipe says 8 (however we liked it so much that for us, it was 6 servings)

Oh, and heads up to friends and family:  When you come to visit us, you're probably going to be served this dish.