Homemade guacamole is one of the easiest last-minute entertaining dishes you can make!

From Mr. Food VP, Howard

If you live in Florida, the week between Christmas and New Years has to be one of the most exhausting weeks of the year. No, we don’t have to shovel snow or worry about washing the salt off our cars from the plows…but we do have to deal with all the visitors that come to the Sunshine State for winter break. Oh, when I say “deal with,” please don’t take that in a bad way.

Ya see, if you live in South Florida, you probably originally came from somewhere else. That means your friends from all over the country flock here to visit family and friends. That also means restaurants are packed, tourists with pale white skin are at the beach even though the temperatures often are only in the 40s and 50s. I think it’s nature’s way of saying to all the visitors…”Don’t move here, the weather isn’t really that great.” And, like clockwork, the week after New Years, the temperatures go back to the mid 70s.

Anyway, the reason this week is so exhausting is that almost every day “we Floridians,” who, by the way, are not on vacation, get calls from our friends at the last minute and want to get together. “How about lunch or dinner or stopping by for a drink?” Sure, it sounds great but if you accept all the offers and still have to get up in the morning…let me tell  you, you really begin to drag.

The other night one of my college friends, Jeff, called and said we should get together. We met at his mom’s condo, where he was staying, after stopping by my assistant’s 40th Birthday bash and then visiting my stepmom in the hospital. She’s doing great, but that’s another story. So, at 9:30 pm, we finally got together. Well, we got there and it was like old times…plus, his mom couldn’t have been more gracious.

After the hugs and tour of her new kitchen, we were offered…wine, coffee, tea. My wife Patty, who, by the way, is the director of the Mr. Food Test Kitchens, and I sat down on the couch. We were then offered a platter of cut fruit, homemade guacamole and sinfully good honey cake. My friend’s mom was so proud that she had whipped up the guacamole in minutes from a couple of over-ripe avocados that were sitting on her counter. She said it was her first time and asked us what we thought. We tasted it and it was…very lemony. Like, pucker-up-and-kiss-me lemony. We said it was good but knew it wasn’t the best guacamole we ever had. Maybe it was the fact that our lips were still in the puckered-up position 10 minutes after our first dip. So then she asked us how she can make it better the next time. Let me tell you that, even though my wife and I eat, live and breathe food, we never criticize food when someone is being gracious to us.

She insisted, so we gave her some pointers and shared with her that she could find several versions of homemade guacamole at MrFood.com. Over time, we’ve found that it’s much more empowering to direct our friends to our website versus telling them how to make something when they call and ask us. It’s like the old story that it’s better to teach someone to fish rather than giving them fish. This way, they’ll never go hungry.

Well, a platter of fruit, a bowl of guacamole and a few slices of honey cake later, and it was already after 11 pm and we had a 30-minute drive home. Tired? Yes. Glad we saw our friends? Yes. And, knowing Jeff’s mom, she probably headed right to the market the next morning in search of a few very ripe avocados so she’s ready for the next time she has company.

As for us, even though New Years is over, 2 more friends to meet with tonight and relatives coming in this weekend, maybe I’ll pick up some avocados, too. Enjoy our guacamole!

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