Admittedly, I wasn’t a fan of avocado growing up. It was always prepared sweet: in shakes, eaten as ice cream… really unthinkable things especially for a kid with an aversion to green things. It was always a big no-no for me. The color of these dishes were unappealing and it swayed me from exploring the fruit — yes, it’s a fruit. It continued for several years until I discovered guacamole with its smooth creaminess (and with a bit of kick is my preference). Since then I’ve since had avocado on toast (my favorite lunch and it helped me slim down in time for my wedding two years ago), in my salads and incorporated into a variety of dishes. But I never circled back to the sweeter side of this fruit until recently.
I was invited to tour Hass avocado farms in San Diego County by the California Avocado Commission and Golin Harris. It was a big honor for me and to say it was eye opening is an understatement. It was amazing and my respect for avocados has reached an all-time high.
The tagline for California Avocado is “hand grown,” true especially seeing each avocado is picked by hand and hand sorted. To go through the steps of how avocados reach your grocery store can be a boring read, but it’s fascinating to watch the process avocado picked from the field to them being packed in boxes. It’s a true work of love and dedication that can be taken for granted when seeing them in the grocery store. Those avocados can be traced back to the source!
But since this is all about food, I tasted a variety of dishes over the weekend that made my avocado on toast seem like a pauper’s meal. What really surprised me was the versatility of the avocado to transform into something sweet I could finally appreciate: hydrogen avocado sundae (avocado foam “fried frozen” in hydrogen — simply mindblowing to watch being made), avocado gelato with pistaschio cake with avocado foam, avocado Twinkies, avocado truffle and my favorite, avocado cheesecake by Chef Trey Foshee.
While it may seem like avocado overload, it wasn’t. The avocado seamlessly transitioned between savory and sweet. Sure, it has that odd color I’m unused to seeing in desserts but I think I can get over that very soon.
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Other accounts from that weekend include those from Average Betty and Pardon My Crumbs.
My Burning Kitchen 
Oh! Neat! My favorite segments of Mister Rogers was the “factory” – making marbles, etc. This is a much more delicious factory! I want an avocado twinkie!!
All food making factory is more delicious than any other factory especially if that factory is Willy Wonka’s! I’ll post the Twinkie recipe when I have a chance.
Oh, yum! I love avocados, even in sweet desserts. My mom used to make an avocado chiffon pie that was so good; we also used to just sprinkle sugar on an avocado half and eat that. Most people don’t think of avocado as a “sweet” food item; I pretty much eat it any way it shows up on my plate.
I kind of wish I could go back in time and tell my 5-years-ago self to plant an avocado tree in the yard so it would be on its way to producing fruit by now.
I’ll try sprinkling sugar on an avocado when I have a next batch but admittedly that’s a really, really difficult for me to comprehend that idea. But the chiffon cake sounds divine!
hi darlene – those are gorgeous photos! how cool is that to get to see an avocado factory!
i never grew up eating avocados but when we did have them, my parents (not me) would eat it with sugar and milk. my fave way of eating avocados is in guacamole. what i wouldn’t give for some of that right now!
Gah! Yeah, I remember my parents doing that too! Totally forgot about that.
Guacamole is my gateway drug to other avocado-based foods.
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