A recipe you don't need for guacamole
Let’s start off with the obvious: no one is coming to this space for a guacamole recipe. But since I’ve made it my mission to make everything in Fave Recipes, and one of those recipes is guacamole, this week, that’s what you’re getting.
As has been extensively previously discussed, I don’t have an incredibly high spice tolerance; as a child, I basically had none. So what you’re seeing here is guacamole alá my mother, though in my memory there was rarely actually any jalapeño because I would have pitched a fit. What I did love: avocados, mashed together with an assortment of my favorite other ingredients, and served on a chip. Snacks of any kind. Lots of flavors and little bites—they’re the best.
I circled back to this guac this past week when I discovered my living companion had over-purchased for a dinner party and we had approximately one zillion avocados about ready to spoil. A really annoying thing about avocados is once they start to brown, they’re kind of done for; you can cut around the brown and moldy parts of many other items, but I find that once an avocado starts to go, the whole thing starts to develop a flavor of Not Good. There’s a small window where that’s not the case, but I fear it all the same. (It’s also wild how an unripened avocado is not only too hard but truly inedible flavor wise. What a fascinating fruit.)
Anyway, so I had a function to attend and guac: it’s what’s for dinner. I doubled the recipe , give or take, carefully slicing avocados because I read once that people cutting their hands open while making guacamole is a leading cause of ER visits over holiday weekends. (I’m not googling this to prove I’m right; if you’re a doctor and this is wrong, don’t weigh in.) Working swiftly, because I fear the brown, I diced up some garlic—I considered using the garlic press because I do prefer it but it wasn’t worth that particular effort—and started making quick work of some leftover pre-sliced limes that also had to get used. Everything else I had on hand, sans the jalapeño, which I guess means if we’re making this appetizer in any way traditional, it was traditional to me, a child, unwilling to eat that pepper in anything. To me, again, not the ultimate arbiter on this front, cilantro is the only really truly necessary thing to give it that kick, though I know those who are predisposed by their genetics so that it tastes like soap will disagree.
These were all mashed together, because, for once, my avocados were the perfect consistency for guac. I love how so much of making an app like this involves lots and lots of tasting for the right balance, to the point where you basically don’t want to eat it later because you’ve had so much. (Do I love this? Maybe I find it very stressful. Who’s to say?)
I then put some discarded pits in it, and covered it with some plastic wrap pressed tight to the surface of the mush to prevent browning. I was told that it was “delicious” by several people who I know read these missives and were therefore either trying to get in my good graces or become famous; either seem highly likely. What we do know for sure is that I did not take a picture of any part of this process, though let’s be honest: you’ve had guacamole before and did not need that, nor probably this, but hopefully both taste alright.
It’s been a year since I took this paid, and during that time, you’ve allowed me to donate over $1,400 to various orgs, which I’m extremely grateful for. Last month, $117.50 went to COVID relief funds in India. This month, the proceeds from your subscription will go to the Downtown Women’s Center, an organization in Los Angeles “focused exclusively on serving and empowering women experiencing homelessness and formerly homeless women.” (I’ll add that it’s an org near and dear to the hearts of several family members of mine.) I’ll tease that if you become a paid subscriber, in a few weeks, you’ll get access to a delicious veggie burger recipe that changed how I thought about veggie burgers, so get on it.