Hello Avocado, My Old Friend

Here is another guest post from JP Vellotti. His last post was about Rice Wine Vinegar salad dressing:

In my last post, I thought Tim was overly generous labeling me as a cook; I simply make food hot. Sometimes, I can actually make food edible, as was the case during my lunch today.

I was painting the garage and didn't want to take too long a break, so I thought the Green Chile Verde burritos from Trader Joe's would hit the spot. While I was waiting for them to come out of the microwave (oh, the horror), I thought a little guacamole would complement them nicely. But we've been pretty light in the produce department these past few weeks, and no avocados were in the fruit basket. And then I remembered seeing one the other day in the fridge.

Yep, I found it, and when I cut it open, found a lot of oxidation in the flesh of the fruit. Instead of chucking it out, I was able to revive it into somewhat decent guacamole by adding the juice of 1/2 lemon and some tamarind hot sauce I brought back from Trinidad (I'm sure any hot sauce will do).

Given that avocados are fetching between $1.00 to $1.50 each, I thought it was a pretty good save.

As an aside, as I was eating lunch, I thought of this little ditty sung (with extreme apologies) to Simon and Garfunkel's, "Sound of Silence."

Hello Hass my old friend,
I've come to look for you again,
Because my belly's hungry,
I know you are the one for me,
But where can you be?
My avocado...

Behind those old salad greens,
or the wilted fava beans,
I remember when you were green,
But all I see now is something slightly brown,
and I turn away.
From what once was, my avocado...

When I saw you at Trader Joe's,
Behind the $7.99 heirloom tomatoes,
You were organic and that was OK with me that day,
and the Oregon Tilth and the USDA.
Oh, you had such promise, but I failed you,
My avocado...

If you weren't one of three,
Things different they may be,
The other two, well they made off with a lime,
In record time,
But I ask,
Who makes guacamole, with a trio?
And so my family bowed and prayed,
to the Organic Gods that day,
if you could just last one more week,
That would be really, really neat,
And we promised to correct all the wrongs in the Frigidaire,
But they didn't care.
And alas, I'm left with, a brown avocado...