The most recent Saveur has one of the most erotic fruits on the cover: the avocado (Nguyen, Andrea, “Like Butter,” no. 104, September 2007, pp. 76-87). Am I in doubt? Check out the cover art of the most recent Pearl Jam album.

As I have said before, I tend to obsess on foods. A while back it was guacamole. I was making it every few nights. At an earlier point I tried to search the stores for a packaged guacamole, but that is hopeless. Most of what goes under the label of guacamole is sour cream and onion dip died green, but even the best doesn’t even come close. It’s something that you simply must make yourself. Fortunately for me and my obsessions, while a late teenager my mother — who probably also has a tendency to obsess on foods — went through a phase where she was constantly making a very rustic guacamole, so improvising my own recipe was natural. I have recently achieved a bit of a party reputation for my guacamole — why, I don’t know: it’s about as simple a recipe as you can imagine. The only thing you need to know is how to combine the ingredients so that you don’t over-stir it and end up with too creamy and consistent a guacamole.

My Central and South America hopping brother told me that once while in Mexico he visited an avocado farm. The farm hound would patrol the fields for over-ripe avocados that had fallen from the trees and gobble them down. He reported that under his fur the dog’s skin was slightly green tinted and that he shit guacamole (the lesser known recipe). On the other hand, I have heard that avocados are poison to most domesticated animals, so I don’t know how to reconcile these two stories. On the precautionary principle, Kitty is rather vehemently shooed away from a bowl of the stuff.