Creative Ways to Eat an Avocado
By Phoenix Ember


A true cook loses herself in the act of cooking.
-Proverb

Avocado on Hard Boiled Eggs:
Halve the avocado and plunge your blade into the pit, twisting to remove. Discard the pit. Slice avocado thinly, set aside.
Hard boil eggs by filling the pot with cold water. Add the eggs and a dash of salt, warm on highest heat. Once the water has reached the boil allow the eggs to cook for ten minutes.
Let your hand hover over the pot. Feel the steam prickle your skin. Do not hesitate. Your teacher is watching.
Lower it—
Lift cooked eggs from the scalding water. Burns sizzle across your flesh.
Rinse your blistered palm and the eggs in cool tap water.
Peel the eggs slowly. Your burned hand may be clumsy. The shells strip away in cracks, leaving white flecks on brutalized skin.
Place the sliced avocado on the halves of hard boiled egg in a spiral. Note the beautiful contrast of firm egg whites, yellow yolks, and green against red fingers.
Classic Guacamole:
Prepare avocados by pitting and slicing the flesh. Dice one clove of garlic. Your fingers will be stained with the pungent scent. Slice lemon into wedges.
Bend before the block willingly. Your teacher will hold your fingers until they ache.
Position the knife just above your fingers on the cutting board. Grit your teeth until you hear a grinding.
Prove it—
Thwack.
The section below the little finger knuckle is gone. Remove sliced finger from the cutting board. Discard.
Spoon the sliced avocado into a bowl. Add lemon juice to prevent discoloration. Be careful when squeezing lemon into bowl to avoid squirting juice into the open wound. Mash the avocado with garlic, sprinkle with a pinch of salt to bring out the flavors.
If blood drips into the guacamole the metallic tang may ruin the delicate balance of flavors. Consider adding more garlic to cover the taste.
Fried Avocado:
Pit and slice avocados. Toss the avocado slices with panko bread crumbs mixed with garlic powder, ground ancho chilies, and salt. Heat the oil in a cast iron pan.
Watch for the oil to bubble and pop. The oil is now ripe for frying.
Touch it—
Your fingers descend toward the oil, four and a half rather than five. Your skin is rippled and warped. In your fingertips the breaded avocado slice, soon to be deep fried— a new culinary delight.
Do it!
Heft the pan in your broken hand, tossing the oil at his leering face. Oil at this temperature will cook flesh in seconds. Using the heavy pan, continue beating until the screaming subsides.
Without the oil and pan the recipe cannot be continued.
Eat the green slices raw.


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Phoenix Ember is a rainbow menace who would very much like to be a country witch but is a city witch through and through. She took a decade to earn a four year degree because she’s an overachiever. She can be found either writing in the dark or cooking with her favorite savory fruit, the avocado.