If you’re like most folk —who hang on every single word I
post on Facebook— then you know that I like avocados. Like, more than a friend.
Recently this “like” has risen to near-obsessive levels.
What you may NOT know is that I’ve been trying to avoid processed
food and refined sugars. Due, in part, to creeping fatness and also to a viewing
of a loosely constructed, but very interesting documentary called “Forks over
Knives” (www.forksoverknives.com) which extolls the virtues of a plant-based,
whole foods kind of lifestyle.
Practically this change has translated into fewer crackers,
chips, cookies, granola bars (donuts *GASP*) and such on a daily basis and
far more fresh, raw fruits and vegetables. So far it’s been great. I wouldn’t
call it a diet, but more of a minor lifestyle adjustment for the better. I’ve
dropped a few pounds, and have been feeling very well indeed. Plus I get extra
fancy-pants-food-snob credits, which allow me to feel vastly superior to the
general public.
So ambling through the produce section one day, feeling very
jaunty and good about myself, I picked up a few attractive looking avocados,
which were on special. In a sun-bathed 70's style flashback I recalled my
days in San Diego (well, mostly Escondido), picking avocados by the shopping bag full from the trees
of a few of my lawn care customers, largely sweet old ladies who lived alone on
giant ranchos in the outlying areas of the North County, and enjoying the avocados on the tailgate of my service truck on my lunch break, overlooking some scenic canyon. I intended to eat these raw, and re-introduce
myself to the fruit.
What I didn’t expect was to fall completely in love with
them.
Flash forward. I cut into the first ripe avocado and sprinkled it lightly with salt and pepper. It tasted like black magic and velvet sunshine. I was into it. I began packing ‘cados in my lunch every day, counting the
minutes until I would carefully slice one open and spoon its contents into my mouth. A brood of green avocados have since been perpetually ripening on the kitchen windowsill. Each devoured at their peak of
smooth, green loveliness.
Though certainly whole, raw and fresh, I had heard for years that the jewel of the San Diego hills
was very fattening due to it’s high fat and calorie content. So I looked it
up.
True, avocados are high in calories and fat, but that is due
to the presence of many GOOD fats, of
the omega-3 and omega-6 variety. These fats are actually essential to brain
function, skin and hair growth, healthy metabolism, joint health, resistance of
inflammation and a healthy reproductive system. So eating lots of delicious avocados
will keep me smart, help my arthritis, keep my massive crop of jet black body hair strong and glossy AND
keep the wedding tackle in good order? Papa calls that a win-win-win-win. Win.
I struggled to include a recipe in this post, and confess
that since this obsession started, I have not cooked a single avocado dish.
That’s because most of the fruit goes directly down the hatch. However, I do have a recipe to share, thanks
to my friend Melissa, who whipped up her own special version of the following recipe as a cold dish over the summer, of a sultry evening, after a hot day of shed building. It
was so good that I have since replicated it several times— with varying results— depending
on what I had laying around, and how hard I felt like working.
So give it a try, if you can control yourself long enough to
spare a few of these luscious brain fatteners long enough to cook with them.
Photo credit: Somebody else.
Papa’s Avocado Pasta
Note: The photo of this dish is completely lifted from the internet, as I said, I haven’t made it recently. The site from which I lifted it also admits to “adapting” it from another blog, so fuck it. Mine looks similar to this without all the cheese and uppity foodie photography.
Get this:
2 to 27 ripe avocados
2 tbsp good olive oil (also rich in good, sexy fats)
About a cup of fresh, diced tomato- use a variety
with lots of flavor, like roma, plum or grape
Handful of fresh basil, chopped
Handul of fresh cilantro, also chopped
A squirt of lemon or lime juice
Pinch of sea salt, dash of black pepper, to taste
Do this:
Cook the pasta to al-dente, drain, and rinse under cool
water
Peel and cut the avocados into chunks, throw ‘em into a
good-size mixing bowl. Drizzle on the oil. Mash with a fork until smoothish but still kinda lumpy.
Add tomato, herbs, lime juice and salt & pepper. Mix
gently.
Toss in cooked and cooled pasta. Eat immediately (like I’d
have to tell you) preferably with a california white, or a nice light-bodied ale. Repeat.
