To make guacamole does not take much. Tonight, for eight people, I used eight avocados, five tomatoes on the vine, four limes, three-quarters of a red onion, cilantro and salt. It was on point. I bought these ingredients at Food Maxx which used to be Save Mart which used to be Lucky’s. When you move away from your hometown and visit on vacation it’s not hard for nostalgia to kick in; it’s not hard to remember days of your life in certain places. So, I wasn’t just a guy in the produce area of a grocery store looking for the best avocados or tomatoes. I’m a guy that grew up in Merced who now lives in Idaho who finds it special to be shopping in this old building with a new name to make guacamole for people he loves. Moreover, as I shopped, the faces of others were not lost on me, hard faces, Mexican faces, Black faces, Hmong faces, had a rough life kind of faces, lower-middle class faces, just trying to survive day by day kind of faces, I don’t care about color faces. Faces you don’t see in Idaho faces. These are my faces.
Nostalgia, if you care like I care, places a certain kind of obligation on you. I found myself giving preference to everyone around me as if doing so could force me into their lives and hardships but I know that can’t be. But I did find kin there, either by fact or fiction. I saw a father and his son shop for food, I saw them in two aisles. The man had no wedding ring and I just felt like we were the same person because I have no wedding ring and I know what it’s like shopping with my son and the kind of shopping cart that creates, one filled with ingredients for intentional dinners while others fall under the category of, “get whatever you want son.” A mother and her daughter stood behind me as I waited to checkout. I ear-hustled a bit, something about school starting and how her daughter could get a ride to school from so and so and the mother asking, “How long has she been driving?” and “Can I get her mother’s number if I have any questions?” And I thought, those are great questions, that’s what I would do and I think it’s weird and cool that we’re strangers thinking the same thoughts.
Over the years, I have made guacamole for close friends. Needless to say, if I’m making guacamole and if I’m coming to your house for dinner, that’s a pretty good barometer indicating how close I am to you and how much I value the relationship. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve acquired, like we all do, new things that move the needle, that we find important and valuable. Yesterday I went to Santa Cruz. I visited Natural Bridges State Beach and had dinner at Woodies with my father and brothers. The beach was not packed nor was the restaurant. I like intimate settings with important people. Those are my mountaintops and rollercoasters. I don’t care for the Boardwalk or for crowds or chaos or the three urchins in front of me walking with hoodies and face-masks who shook a can of Squirt and chucked it high in the air, almost hitting us.
My mother taught me how to make guacamole although she did not know she was teaching me. I watched her make it a handful of times. That was enough for me to pick it up. She’s the one who told me the importance of keeping a pit or two in the guacamole to keep it from going brown. I know my guacamole is perfect if when I taste it it tastes just like hers, where you taste the lime first, the avocado and then the salt. Tomorrow morning, I will visit her plot with my sister and my son. We’ll have breakfast first somewhere and if I order something with guacamole, I hope they know what they’re doing.
