Guacamole & Oolong

a FED origin story

My aunt told me a story once about avocados and my South Georgia grandmother. “The first avocado I ever saw, or tasted,” she said, “was on a salad at Miz David’s Sunday dinner table.” A teenager at the time, sharing a meal with her big sister’s new family, my aunt is now nearly eighty and lives in Marin County, California, where avocados are a staple on her table, as they are on most now. In 1963, however, an avocado in Albany, Georgia was something else.

Frances Eloise David and Ashley David, 1969

Frances Eloise David, my grandmother, for whom FED is named, was an intrepid shopper at the market, a grand experimenter in the kitchen, and a believer that anything new must be taken home at once and figured out. Ergo the avocado.

She was frugal to a tee, and these experiments left little room for error. A child of the Great Depression, “waste not, want not,” was not advice but a way of life. For these essential extravagances, then, I love her all the more.

Frances’ last birthday, at the kitchen table in Albany, Georgia, 1999

My grandmother is gone now, but when I was small, Frances would sit me down at her kitchen table to shell lady finger peas, or snap beans, or fold cloth napkins while she stood at the counter preparing the meal and telling me important stuff.

“Sugar,” she’d say, followed by something like, “I’ve always believed—no matter how hard things are—that I would eat well.” She’d pause for effect and to see that I was shelling or snapping or folding properly, before continuing with her punchline. “My initials spell fed!” She laughed immediately, and I can still hear it.

Not as quick as she, I dropped the pod from green-stained fingers and drew out letters in my largely pre-literate head until the lightbulb flashed. They did! Just as she did, indeed, eat well. As did everyone who was ever lucky enough to sit at her table and get fed well and good, with not a drop to waste.

So, to make my grandmother proud—24 years gone and missed no less, no matter the decades—yes, to do her proud, I offer you guacamole and tea time, channeling her bountiful spirit.

Big love, Ashley

Yes, this sliced avocado is not guacamole at all, but a delicious topping for a tofu, collard green, green chili, and yogurt concoction piled on gluten-free Afghan bread, all made from things on hand during the pandemic, with the resourcefulness my grandmother taught me. But, you already know what guacamole looks like, right? ❤️

GetFED Guacamole

for Frances and all she loved

Buy an avocado hard, and put it on the counter so you won’t forget it is there.

Check it gently each day until it is feeling soft enough to mash easily with a fork, but dance on the edge, and by no means allow it to overripen nor cut it open when it is too hard to mash. Every possible morsel must be savored.

At the precise moment, eat the ripe avocado. No matter if you are not good at shopping and timing things for an occasion. When it is ready, you must change your meal plans to include avocado. If you have no time, mash it on toast, or slice it for the side of your plate, and don’t be fussy about what goes with what. Ripe avocado is always a treat.

But, if you have a lime and some chips, mash it with a fork on a plate. I have a favorite old fork I saved from my grandmother’s kitchen, and it’s perfect, with deep narrow tines, but any fork will do.

Sprinkle seasalt on the flat mash. Also, fresh cracked black pepper and some chili flake. These are essential, but even better, add some finely chopped onion and skip the chili flake in favor of a chopped cayenne pepper from the back patio if the season’s right or the decanter of hot pepper vinegar sitting on the kitchen table if it’s not. Now, squeeze half a lime, and fold everything in with the fork.

Scoop it all into a nice little pile, pour some chips on the plate, make a pot of tea—oolong’s my favorite¹—and take it all to the patio, Sugar, on a small tray… so you can watch the birds and have a little break.

My grandmother’s pressed aluminum tray, which I use every day, in this case for a breakfast of fava beans, carrots, and eggs scrambled with spinach.

---

P.S. Be sure to check out this week’s Renderings #5-#10 by Gabriel Sacco. And to learn more about Gabe and FED’s entire Spring 2024 all-star line-up of musicians, artists, writers, growers, gleaners, cooks, and craftspeople headed your way this season, check out Special Guests.

1. I like to source my tea from family-run farms practicing sustainable farming and traditional production methods in Taiwan, which is famous for its oolong. My favorite distributor is Eco-Cha Teas because they feel like the closest thing to going into a shop and talking to someone that I’ve been able to find online. If you’re new to oolong and tea, they have all kinds of homey videos to walk you through brewing and appreciating a special cup. Ritualized tea drinking, one of my essential extravagances, follows my grandmother’s lead, and my approach to sourcing good tea is akin to her intrepid market shopping at the Piggly Wiggly, but updated for a 21st century world, which allows me to travel while standing in my kitchen in pajamas with a smart phone in hand.