Fruit of the gods

Guacamole?  What's that?

When I first moved to Los Angeles, I didn't like avocados.  I hadn't had a lot of them, mainly because I lived in the Northeast (before guacamole became plentiful everywhere).  After I moved here, they'd show up in salads and other dishes, and I might take a bite, but mostly I picked them off.

However, being a "thrifty" person (a nice way of saying cheap), when I moved into an apartment building with an avocado tree in the backyard, I wasn't about to let all that free food go to waste.

The Experimental Gourmet

Oddly, instead of just making a lot of guacamole, I became obsessed with finding recipes for all the falling fruit.  Among the strange items I made: avocado ice cream (really!), avocado pesto, and a bizarre "New Wave" guacamole with very strange spices I can't remember and which you ate with fried wontons. 
Usually I am too cheap -- I mean thrifty -- to throw out the result of any recipe I try, no matter how disastrous, but I admit the ice cream landed in the trash.  The others I stuffed down, gagging.  (Actually the weird guacamole was okay.) 

Somehow, eventually, I grew to love the cute little green things, and I found actually tasty recipes for them (including one published in Cooking Light: avocado, brown rice, black beans and cherry tomatoes -- easy and delicious).

Paradise

Now I love avocados.  I can't believe there was a time when I didn't!  I'll eat them with just some lemon juice and salt on top, with chips.  Or just salt and no chips.  Or just...avocado...