Gazpacho!

Michele Host's cover story for the Piker Press this week just about drove me nuts.

The story is called "Gazpacho" and although somewhat on the slap-your-hands-over-your-eyes ook, nevertheless made me long for gazpacho, a dish which I have loved for well over thirty years and never make because my beloved husband hates tomatoes in any form other than spaghetti sauce.

(Or fried green tomatoes, which I, in a strange cosmic reciprocation, loathe.)

The cover image, which said husband chose out of these three, is a digital photo, stretched a little and super saturated with color in Photoshop.

This one was a macro -- close focus feature -- which I also Photoshopped, this time with "paint daubs" as a filter.

I chopped a tomato and some celery and a white onion for these shots, all the while promising myself that I would use the ingredients to make some real gazpacho for myself later.

The last picture I used the artistic filter "paint daubs" on, and then another filter "poster edges." This probably would have been my first choice for cover, but Bernie has a good eye.

P.S. The gazpacho I made this afternoon was HEAVENLY.

But that's another creative post.