Finally!
Yesterday, upon walking into a supermarket, I came face-to-vegetable with the fact that avocadoes are in season again!
Said fact is a cause for much celebration for me, as miserable, small, hard-as-rock or gone-rotten-mushy avocadoes have plagued the supermarkets for a few months now, until this reprieve. I have immediatelly stuffed three huge avocadoes into a bag and resolutely dragged them to the checkout. There was no way I was leaving them behind!
Why? Because I adore them, and because they are not just rich, satiating and wonderfully delicious – they are oh, so good for your hair and skin, but that’s not all – one of their crowning glories is that they are … ready. To eat. You can just cut them apart, and scoop the flesh out onto some greens, or if you are too lazy, they make for a lunch all on their own, cut in half and with some lemon spritzed into the cavity, salt, pepper… you need nothing more. Spoon away!
Well, ok, maybe some freshly-baked bread for the large viking-type friend who isn’t avoiding carbohydrates just now is called for. But I, I need nothing else.
So today, after a session of teaching/baking bread with my friend (which went lovely by the way, with very very pretty and tasty results!), I’ve made lunch for the two of us using just one of those monstrous vegetables fruit (that’s what they are, technically). Yes, that pile you see on my plate is just half of one! I tossed them on a bed of some arugula (my ever-favorite greens), fried some bacon to crispness, sliced a ball of mozzarella, and salted and peppered it all, and finished with a bit of olive oil.
I wouldn’t call it cooking, really (well, ok, the bacon got cooked), but rather assembly – which, if you think about it, a lot of rather fancy catering is all about. Ina Garten even gives a whole chapter in her Barefoot Contessa cookbook to assembling food for parties, rather than cooking – and I can’t help but agree that it’s a wonderful (and oh so very agreeable to my lazy self) idea. Some of the best ingredients aren’t about cooking, they are about putting them out there with some other things that go along with them, and letting them be their wonderfully appetizing selves.
And, if it works for parties and catering, why shouldn’t or wouldn’t it work for lunch?
Like this.
To be perfectly honest, if I did not have a guest here, I would be perfectly happy to take it just like that, sliced on a plate, to the sofa, and eat it there, without any mention of a table knife or napkin. But since I was making lunch for more than just myself, I did dress them up a little with salt and pepper and olive oil.
Like this.
So, next time you see a good avocado at the greengrocer or in the supermarket, you don’t need to think of it as a vegetable that you ‘could do something with‘ – unless you actually want to fuss in the kitchen, that sort of thought is entirely unnecessary here. Just think of it as ‘this thing I want to eat‘, buy it, take it home, and do just that. Then spend the half hour or hour-and-a-half you would have spent cooking on doing something else. Like reading. Or writing. Or just being lazy – which is, after all, its own reward.
Eat The Roses 
Oooohhh….. my kinda lunch! Crispy bacon, arugula, avocado, cheese, bread (yes, bread, I love bread) … all my favorite things! Perfect! Yes, I agree with you about assembling a lunch/meal rather than cook up a storm, sweating over a hot stove. This is just as satisfying … well, for me anyway. My carnivore of a husband needs big chunks of red meat … sigh.
I love bread too, which is why I learned to bake sourdough. It tastes soooo amazing! Unfortunately, bread (and all refined carbs, really) tends to make my sugar-sensitive behind grow larger, so occasionally I avoid bread and sugar for a while to repair my relationship with the mirror.
My carnivore of a boyfriend wants meat too – but we generally do the chunks of meat for dinner! Do you own a cast-iron grill pan? Those, while they do need to get very hot, make grilling steaks on the stovetop a breeze, especially in a climate when you can open windows year-round! (Not so much in Sweden in winter when it’s -18°C or so out… in daytime.)
We have one attached to the bbq thingy. I’ve made it such that if he wants the chunks of meat, he’s got to do the chunks of meat. So, I’ve got to admit it’s kinda backfired on me in that I can’t do steaks too well while he’s the expert now and when I do crave for some, I’d have to beg him for it. I don’t think he minds too much tho … :D
Heh, lucky you to have a man who’ll, if not kill the mammoth and drag it home, then at least grill the meat for you! ;)
Mine is wonderful, but he’s only very slowly getting over the intimidation of the scary place that is the kitchen!
Haha! Caveman and modern man all rolled into one! I did a post called “sci-fi” steak and that’s one of his doings, using the sous-vide method without a sous-vide contraption. So much for caveman cooking … :D He’s way technical and I believe he enjoyed the process of this rather than the end result! Maybe your man might be interested if it’s manly like this … hint, hint at him.
Yep, I saw that post – it sounded fascinating, though possibly a bit too scifi for my kitchen habits. I like it quick, easy and generally rather rustic. You are right, perhaps if I could get my [cave]man to learn… hmmm ;)
Oh how I love fresh avocado! We visited an avocado orchard in California a couple of years ago and I have yearned to return ever since! We have a couple of avocado plants growing in pots from seeds, but we expect to keep buying the yummy fruits for several years before ours make.
Dana
I know how you feel! – I can’t stand the either rotten or miserably hard ones you normally see in supermarkets, and there is no way one would grow here. I also tend to not believe the “put them on a shelf in a bag and they ripen” spiel – in my experience, if I do that, they don’t ripen, they rot.
So I just eat them opportunistically, as and when I can get the really good ones!