My family has had a backyard garden since I was in high school. Each summer, tomatoes, squash, cucumbers and peppers cover our kitchen counter tops; and each August, my family tries to send me back to school with bags stuffed full of fresh vegetables. I know you might be thinking, 'Great! Less money to spend at Harris Teeter.' But when you live in an apartment with a kitchen so tiny it barely holds enough food for the six girls living there, it's kind of hard to find the space, much less the time, to store and cook the 15 squash that your parents gave you.\nWhen I counted 26 tomatoes sitting on our counter at home, I decided to do something quickly before my kitchen this year became the new community produce storage unit. After religiously reading online discussions in the Food section of the Washington Post this summer, I decided to try something new: gazpacho.\nNow, I'm no chef extraordinaire. Actually, that's an exaggeration: I can hardly cook. Pasta and chicken are basically all I eat at school. But this semester I decided to make a New (School) Year's resolution to learn how to cook for real.\nGazpacho - pronounced just as it looks, which I learned the hard way - is a simple, tomato-based Spanish soup. It didn't appear too hard to make, and it's served cold, so it seemed like a refreshing twist for summer.\nA friend surveyed the tomatoes sprawled across the table and picked five of the smallest ones to start dicing. Meanwhile, I began chopping everything else. I eyed the garlic, slightly unsure how to approach it, considering that the only time I've ever seen real garlic - as opposed to garlic powder - was back in the day when Buffy needed it to slay vampires.\nThe recipe may or may not have called for 10 tomatoes, and we may or may not have used only six. I accidentally used too much onion, and the recipe didn't call for cucumbers, but we put them in anyway. Also, I have no idea what the difference between sherry and regular vinegar is, so I just didn't tell my friend - it was only two tablespoons anyway, right? (Note: substituting ingredients does NOT work in baking. The sunken blue-green blueberry muffins I made in eighth grade Home Economics can attest to the fact that baking soda is not an appropriate substitute for baking powder.)\nSatisfied with the ingredients in the blender, I pushed "Puree." There was a loud whirring noise and a rush of air coming out from under the blender, but our plethora of veggies didn't move. We tried again. Nothing. Thankfully, we found a new blender, shoveled everything into it and voil
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