Don’t Peel the Avocado!

Great effort, poor result

My goal was simply to make a new salad for Christmas that featured red and green. The two main ingredients were tomatoes and avocados. Obviously this salad did not originate in New England to be made in December in the early 1980s because neither of those vegetables was readily available or ripe enough to taste great, but that’s not the point of this story.

I had never met an avocado in its entirety. (Please note that this was prior to YouTube advice in the kitchen!) The recipe called for diced avocado. I did know that I needed to get past that reptilian outside and my tool of choice was a vegetable peeler. This worked ok for the first few strokes, nicely removing the skin, but it got really slippery and messy as I turned it in my hand to get the rest of it. Way too much of the part I wanted just mushed up in my hand while I applied pressure with the peeler from the other. After peeling, I cut what remained away from the pit and diced what was left – not much. Phew!

I had no clue how to make this easier.

For a few YEARS, each time I used avocado in a recipe I did the same thing: peeled from the outside! Until I had a close encounter with a native Californian who, to my astonishment, took a knife straight around a whole avocado and when it fell into perfectly un-mushed halves, hit the pit with the knife blade, lifted it out, loosened it out of the skin with a spoon, and sliced it easily. It was a revelation!

Here’s the point: I did the best I could to accomplish my goal but there was a MUCH SIMPLER way to accomplish the same goal that I didn’t know existed.

We don’t always know what we don’t know!

Are you trying to accomplish something in a way that may be harder than necessary, taking extra steps or using the wrong tools? Maybe because “you’ve always done it this way” or because you can’t see any alternative approach?

Coaching can make life easier

In coaching we work together to notice your processes and make things easier whenever possible with new tools and strategies. You don’t have to peel the avocado!
Contact me today to find out more – about coaching, not cooking!