Gazpacho minus blender, or tomato-cucumber salad

This is it. If you're like me, and you live someplace where it's been a coldish and very rainish sort of summer, well then, you've been sitting on your hands all summer. You've been pining. Yearning. Dreaming of the day when you could venture out the door in an apron and return with an apron-ful of red, sun-warmed orbs.

Or maybe you've been waiting for your local farmstand or market to finally begin stocking red, sun-warmed orbs.

Either way, the red, sun-warmed orbs are paramount. They are the main character, the central drama of the story.

I'd been slowly accumulating cherry tomatoes on my countertop all week. Every day, I'd collect another handful of 'em from the garden, until last night, with a peck of farm-stand cukes, I decided to make this salad.

What does summer taste like to you? To me, it's a gin and tonic in a sweating glass, a slice of spicy cantalope, and this salad. Tomatoes, cucumbers, red onion, and fresh herbs. It's summer, and I could eat a whole bowlful of this. For breakfast. Ice cold.

Summer Tomato-Cucumber Salad

2 medium cucumbers, sliced (peeled, too, if they're from the grocery store)

Roughly a pint of cherry tomatoes, halved (or an equal quantity of regular tomatoes, cored and chopped)

1/2 a small red onion, finely chopped

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 tbsp red wine vinegar

2 tbsp minced fresh basil

2 tbsp minced fresh parsley

1 tbsp minced fresh oregano

2 garlic cloves, minced

ample salt and black pepper to taste

Mix everything together, and eat. The longer it sits, the better it tastes (within reason), as the flavors have time to blend.

We've been known to throw in bell pepper strips, fresh mozzarella, toasted bread cubes, or roasted red peppers, and make it something a little more lavish. But last night it was fine, as an accompaniment to marinated tofu skewers and fresh corn on the cob.

And the rule is, Diesel gets a cob.

Is that not an excited-looking dog?