Today In the Kitchen: Good avocados key to great guacamole

Recently at an upscale restaurant in Tucson, I was served guacamole tableside, ˆ la Caesar Salad. It was prepared in a large bowl from two ripe avocados, finely chopped onion, garlic and hot peppers, and a little freshly squeezed lemon juice. No sour cream or cilantro, tomatoes or cayenne, although all of those are optional. The mixture was mashed coarsely, and served with ground salt on top. Simple and delicious.

Avocados are best bought before they are ripe, and allowed to ripen for a few days at room temperature, so plan ahead. The citrus (could be lime juice as well as lemon) helps keep the avocado from browning (oxidizing). However, the waiter told me his secret: about an ounce of cola. Hmm. I am generally opposed to using such “foods,” but upon consideration, figure that there is no food in cola - it is all chemicals and preservatives. If cola can take the rust off iron, I guess it could prevent oxidation of avocado.

Guacamole was invented by the Aztecs, as long ago as 500 B.C. The word means “avocado mixture.” Purportedly it was Montezuma’s favorite dish, and he retained one person whose sole job was to prepare the daily guacamole.

The tortilla chips can be more than just a vehicle. Some extraordinary ones are available at the Wednesday Farmers Market from a vendor who says she grinds the corn herself, and fries the chips in olive oil. She also makes tortillas and cookies with fragrant mesquite flour, which is slightly sweet from natural fructose, and helps control blood sugar. The lovely mesquite trees are shady lifesavers in this climate, but they also produce bean pods which are a source of nutrition for indigenous cultures. They are high in fiber, protein, and minerals, while being low-carb, low-fat, low-glycemic, and gluten- free.

Guess what else is coming in? Figs! I didn’t expect to find them here, but the neighbor of a friend has a tree, and the owners are out of town, and a couple of coyotes actually showed up in their neighborhood with a scheme - one sits in the middle of the street and keeps watch while the other goes over to the tree and steals fruit! Well, if that coyote is getting fresh figs, you can be darned sure I’m going to try for some.

Fresh figs are a completely different animal than dried or cooked ones. They are exotic and exquisite. Green, brown, purple - whatever the skin color, if the fruit is ripe, the inside can be anything from pale pink/amber to a heady magenta. And the taste is perfect unadorned - it does not need a thing. The way to eat a fig out of hand is to quarter it and just scrape the insides right off the skin. Of course, figs can be peeled and sliced for tarts, added to fruit salads, wrapped with prosciutto, stuffed with goat cheese, or used to fill endive leaves and sprinkled with crushed walnuts. The mashed fresh fruit can even be sprinkled with a little lemon juice to keep it from browning, and frozen.

Figs are indigenous to the Middle East, and have spread to areas with Mediterranean climates. As a food source, they are high in fiber, antioxidants, and potassium, which helps control blood pressure. They are very perishable, and should be purchased not more than a couple of days ahead of when you are planning to eat them. Look for ones with deep color, and that are plump and tender. If ripe, store in the fridge in paper bags. If not quite ripe, place on a plate at room temp, out of direct sun.

Stella (the photogenic one in our column picture) and I are taking a car trip to Maine, and will be writing from the road. We hope to discover some interesting things to share with you. If you know of special foods that are native to areas we might be passing through (Texas, the Plains states, some of the Lakes states, and the Northeast), I’d like to hear about them. Maybe we can track ’em down. We plan to be back in August. I’ll try not to tease too much about my regular infusions of lobster!

Samaya Jones is a Holistic Nutritional Consultant and Natural Foods Personal Chef, who cooks for you and your guests in your home. She writes for health websites, newspapers, and teaches wine education classes. She can be reached at ncsamayaj@gmail.com.