Avocado Tree Update

Several months ago I wrote of the great tragedy involving the death of our avocado tree. Well, happy times are here again. Although all the lower branches were brutally cut off and burned, the upper branches were left on the tree. This didn’t do us much good because the tree branches were too high to get the avocados from so we could only pick up a few from the ground. Last week, it was rather windy here. So windy that one day a massive branch from the avocado tree fell down, raining avocados. All of a sudden we had more avocados then we knew what to do with. We kept some for ourselves and gave away a bunch. Slowly, the avocados began to ripen. First there were 3, then 5, then 7, then 23, then more ripe avocados. And one must move quickly when an avocado becomes ripe lest it become over ripe and turn into mushy green gross stuff. Over five days four people ate something like 18 avocados (four because Stefano and Clara were out of town). One meal alone featured an astounding 6 avocados. That’s a lot of avocados. I like avocados, but unfortunately, I think I like avocados the most in the community. Imagine eating avocados for five straight days with every meal when you really don’t like them. Imagine eating avocados for five straight days with every meal when you really do like them. It has been a test of creativity and trust in the California sponsored avocado website to come up with new and excited ways to present avocado at every meal. I have enjoyed testing the culinary boundaries of avocados and I have quickly learned there is so much more than I ever imagined to this delicious fruit…Avocados: they are more than guacamole!

Let me share with you some of the culinary delights of avocados: 
-rolled in cornmeal and fried (my favorite),
-in a pie mixed with lemon juice and sweetened condensed milk (reminiscent of key lime pie)
-soup (not so good, I felt like I was drinking Spock’s blood, a sort of Vulcan Vampire)
-cooked with tomatoes served over rice
-in potato salad
-in deviled eggs
-rolled in sugar and fried
And of course
-guacamole