A BOWL of chilled borscht laced with sour cream seems like an
ideal late-summer soup, right up there with gazpacho made from
the last of the ripe tomatoes. But unlike gazpacho, which can be
whipped together in a blender without once turning on the stove,
traditional beet borscht requires a pretty lengthy stint of
simmering. Ideal, maybe, to make in the chilly dawn of a Russian
winter but not something you would want to bother with during
the still-warm September days here in New York.  This was my
thinking until one day in Fairway when I was indulging in a
favorite pastime: perusing the produce aisle. There, garnet-hued
and vacuum packed, were small, bulbous bunches of cooked peeled
beets. They looked familiar. I had seen something similar in
France, where supermarkets sell cooked beets as a matter of
course. And, indeed, these were French imports, each package
about half a pound (250 grams) and retailing for only 89 cents.
A vision popped in my head: instant borscht, a recipe as quick
as a smoothie and much