Trials etc. of an Avocado Aficionado

Trials and Tribulations of an Avocado Aficionado

You might be just like me. An avocado lover, cursed by circumstances. Yes — cursed.

I love avocados. I like them on sandwiches. I like them in a breakfast wrap with egg whites, tomato and onion. I like them crushed up in a delicious guacamole dip. I regularly follow that bastion of online avocado education, Huffington Post for the latest and most up-to-the-minute Avocado news. I haven’t tried it yet, but I’m very intrigued by this Avocado Tuna Salad recipe. I’m almost certain that I’ll like it.

You might say that avocados are an avocadation of mine.

But it’s so very hard. My avocado curse starts with my family. Incredibly, no one likes avocados. For instance, my son — my very own flesh and blood — just doesn’t like them like I do. Sure, he’ll make a half hearted attempt at scooping up some guacomole when we go to a Mexican restaurant. Be he’d never order it. I have to do all the heavy lifting and it’s just a little drag on the experience. I feel obligated to eat *all* the guacomole and you know, that’s just not really the best idea. There is such as thing as too much of a good thing.

It continues with the people outside of my immediate family circle. You try ordering a wrap with egg whites, avocado, tomato and onion. It’s kind of like this fundraising event I just recently attended. I asked one of the people at my table what he did for a living. He paused awkwardly and blurted out, “I’m a screw salesman.” I’m a professional consultant and people tell me weird stuff all the time, so I managed not to do what most other people probably do when they learn his occupation, such as say “come again?” blurt out a “really!” or just plain start laughing. But I was doing all of that on the inside. And this is exactly what I’m faced with when I tell most people that I want avocado with my eggs.

The curse gets even worse! Since I can’t rely on anyone to share my avocados, I’m forced to deal with — and store — partially used avocados. By this I mean — you buy an avocado in the store because you want to make a delicious sandwich. For instance: sliced turkey, tomato, an outrageous amount of red onion and of course, avocado. It is a sadly true fact that avocado is fattening. In fact, you’re only supposed to use a quarter of an avocado on a typical sandwich. I’m OK with that — a little avocado goes a long way, especially if you load up a corner of the sandwich with it and then save that piece for last. That one little avocado can last a week. Or it could, that is, if weren’t for the browning problem!

Avocados turn brown faster than Trump can sue a dowager for her home’s nascent parking lot potential. If you suffer my curse, you have three choices:

- Live with brown avocados. I’m not a big fan, frankly.
- Eat them all at once. This isn’t healthy.
- Bundle them up in layers of plastic and live with a little bit of brown.

The only reasonable choice is #3.

But it’s so hard! First off, you have to have the right plastic dispersment and packaging system on hand (I recommend Costco’s clever solution). Then, you have to wrap it up and be ever so careful that you cover up the green bits with plastic, or they will go brown. A tiny air pocket is enough to cause trouble.In the end, you end up with a plastic mess of a disaster.

This means that when you want another delicious slice of avocado, you have to dismantle a plastic monstrosity (which is a bigger time sink than you think), extract the the buttery goodness and then re-assemble the whole package. It never goes back together as nicely the 2nd time.

What’s that, you say? There must be an easier way? Well, you would be wrong. Wrong, as in science. Huffington Post proved it.

Despite these challenges, I keep buying, ordering and eating avocados. I intend to keep eating them, even when they are a little brown. I do, however, await with great anticipation the day when the girls and boys of Silicon Valley finally put their minds to solving this problem by hacking into Big Avocado’s computer networks and finding the Truth About Avocado Storage once and for all. It will be a glorious moment for we Avocado fans.