Spring into Summer

As I watched kids piling into school the other day wearing shorts, sneakers and t-shirts, I had to grudgingly admit that it is beginning to look like summer. A Saturday stop at the Pasadena Farmer’s Market made that even clearer. No, it wasn’t the shoppers in flip flops who convinced me. It was the displays of artichokes, strawberries and cherries showing off their summer color. The smell and intense color of rainier cherries sends out an almost hypnotic call which local shoppers can’t resist. The season for them is short, a mere five weeks, so now is the time to get cherry wild. There were also collections of early dug potatoes, some no larger than a walnut, with colors from white to red to brown to purple ready to be boiled in salt water and drizzled with butter. One farmer had displays of colorful radishes, even elongated pink and white French breakfast radishes, right next to multihued beets all sharing space with big, sugary sweet onions with gigantic green tops banded together. Farmer’s markets can inspire your inner chef and looking at those onions, my inner chef was whispering ‘onion rings’. There were crates of small blushy apricots and a farm helper was cutting up a few and handing out samples. His stand was a few feet away from another farmer selling vegetable and herb starts; small fingers of rosemary to plant, tomato seedlings of all kinds and big buckets of mint for $3 which, once planted, are sure to keep you in tabouleh all summer long.

Toward the market entrance was a flat bed truck piled high with avocados for sale. Almost all were the black pebbly Haas variety with a bag of four selling for $1.50. That’s pretty cheap, especially by farmer market standards. Avocados start to mature in spring and by now the trees are loaded with ripe fruit which must be picked and eaten. How lucky we are.

While we add avocados to salads for dinner, mash and spoon them on top of whole wheat toast for breakfast or into veggie sandwiches, nothing compares with our deep desire to turn them into guacamole. At my house, the spicy, smooth, limey flavor of guacamole keeps everyone reaching for another tortilla chip until the bowl is scraped clean. I expect that we’re not unusual. People have been making guacamole since Aztec times, only the original Aztec recipe was a stripped down combination of avocados, tomato and salt. In fact, the word ‘guacamole’ is compound word of Aztec origin. In native Nahuatl, the word “ahuacatl” means avocado and “molli” means sauce.

There are as many recipes for guacamole as there are passionate guacamole eaters, which is to say, a lot. As a general rule of thumb, avocados should be the main ingredient. From there, anything goes. Add jalapenos, hot sauce, onions, garlic, tomatoes, cilantro, lime juice, whatever else you like, and you have a great dip to share or to hoard entirely to yourself.

It’s not a hard dish to make. To prove it our Kindergarten through 8th graders will be whipping up batches of guacamole all next week. Contact your child’s teacher and find out when the festivities will begin and plan a ‘surprise’ visit. You’ll be delighted at what you see and what you taste.