The mighty avocado

I love avocados - but I am a purist. Except for a little salt, they need no accompaniment. I have trained my daughter well and she salivates everytime we get an "abogado" from the store (yes, my latin friends, I know it is the spanish word for lawyer. I haven't yet figured out what she means by that, either!).

My grandmother had a mature, beautiful, avocado tree in her backyard. I remember many summer nights that we would make a huge bowl of guacamole and eat it with corn chips. If I remember correctly, we didn't even pass out plates - we just dove in. When my family got together a few years ago, we had a huge bowl of guacamole that didn't even make it to the last person. We're big fans.

While we were living in "The South," avocados were something we only had on very special occasions. The prized Haas variety was very expensive (sometimes $2.50 a piece!) and Florida's version never lived up to any kind of expectation. And after you spent money on the good stuff, you never really knew if you were going to get brown streaks inside - or a huge pit. It was a sad time.

Now that I live in the sunny west again, I eat avocados all the time again. We can usually be assured that the 69 cent small varieties will be pure and green and have a small pit - so you only need a few to make a proper guacamole.

I would post a recipe - but I am serious when I say that I am a purist. John's cousin made a guacamole that was lovely, and he put tomatoes, onions and (gasp) mayonaise in it, but all I was thinking as I was eating it was "It needs more avocado!"

Why a whole post about avocados? I don't know. Maybe because I was noticing how Christmassy the green was on my taco salad last night. Maybe because I feel grateful for having such a wonderful thing back in my life again. Maybe it's just because I wanted to wax poetic about avocados.

Yummmmy!