Choice Goods Wednesday!

This will be the last Choice Goods post for a couple weeks while my hubby and I travel to Africa! I'm so excited!! I've been to all the countries in North America (snicker, snicker) and this will be my first trip off the continent! Moving on...

I'm trying so hard to vary it up, but I have to throw another kitchen item in the mix. Sorry.

Avocados.

Ever since I've started eating a more-or-less vegetarian diet, I've really come to appreciate avocados. They are delicious. (Try one in a grilled cheese sandwich, sprinkled with a little garlic salt and you've just experienced divinity.) The fact that they are high in good fat makes any dish more satiating. And don't even get me started on guacamole!


I normally buy a few every week. And though I'm great at cutting them in half and popping out the seed, I suck at making "lovely" slices. That is until I bought an avocado slicer. Now I make the most beautiful, unmushed, even slices. Photo worthy, even. (I just realized how cool it would be if I had some "real life" pictures of me using my avo slicer. Sorry, we ate the last ones the other day and I haven't gone grocery shopping.)

If you eat avocados in salads, sandwiches, whatever, this little gadget will make you so happy. Just slice the avo in half, remove the pit, and while holding one avocado half in your hand, gently press the slicer into the top and following the skin, slice through to the bottom. If you dump it over, out will fall perfectly sliced pieces of that delicious green fruit/vegetable/whatever.

The one drawback mine has is that it is one-size-fits-most. If you have an extra large or small avocado, you will have a little bit of trouble, either leaving some uncut or being unable to cut through without the skin getting in there. I've found that avocados, in general, are pretty uniform and it's pretty rare that one is so much on the extreme ends of the spectrum that I can't use the slicer at all. (Except those gigantic, kelly green, tasteless West Indian cultivars. Blech!) There are flexible, plastic slicers that are supposed to handle different sizes, but I've never tried one and can't vouge for it. I prefer the sturdy metal of mine, anyways. If you do try one, let me know how it handles.

So there you have it. I'm not a big fan of hyper-specialized tools in the kitchen. (Especially those ridiculous ones like the hot-dog cooker and the countertop pizza oven.) But in instances when you consume a lot of the given food, the old maxim "right tool for the job" holds its own.

Avocado slicers...they're choice!