IN SEARCH OF...GREAT GUACAMOLE

My friend Becky perpetually bemoans the state of avocados in St. Louis.  She can never find one that’s “just right.”  She even went so far as to order a case shipped to her home.  Regretfully, they arrived more rotten, than ripe (nasty!)  I never quite understood her frustration.  St. Louis avocados were “fine”…or at least that’s what I thought until I tasted San Antonio avocados; they are amazing!

Hass avocados, imported from Mexico or Peru, must be getting as far north as Texas and stopping.  Or perhaps, Texans eat them all?

In San Antonio, avocados are piled in enormous stacks in the supermarket produce aisle.  When produce in other bins looks a bit tired or just plain sad, the avocados are perfect.

Avocados, so smooth and buttery, obviously create amazing guacamole.  My husband Tim is convinced that it must be against some local law to serve bad guacamole in San Antonio, but how can they go wrong when the main ingredient is so wonderfully fresh?  They don’t go wrong; they just go different.  Chefs attempt countless variations on a theme.

Tim and I are taking it upon ourselves to taste-test the local guacamole recipes.  Our journey is reminiscent of a visit to Key West where we tried Key Lime pie at every restaurant stop.  We compared the sweet with the tart, the fresh whip cream with stiff peaks of meringue, the flaky crust with the graham cracker crumble.  The guacamole journey is in process and has roughly ten different recipes to its tally – the chunky vs. the smooth, the buttery vs. the spicy, the citrusy vs. the peppery.

As part of our exhaustive research, we went to Boudro’s Texas Bistro on the Riverwalk recently.  Boudro’s guacamole was voted readers’ favorite in the local newspaper’s (San Antonio Express-News) Readers’ Choice 2013 poll.  Boudro’s presentation was impressive.  Our waiter made the guacamole tableside.  Besides avocado, he added orange and lime juice, purple onion, fire-roasted tomatoes, and fresh cilantro.  Yum, right?  We’re done?  We’ve found the guacamole; the search is over?  Nope.  Sorry Boudro’s, but we like to taste the avocado (especially when they’re as good as they are in south Texas!) and in Boudro’s version, the primary ingredient got lost amidst all the other flavors. 

Our search continues, but it’s a hardship we’re willing to endure.