Holy Guacamole

Trying to find time to post blog articles this week has been a challenge - I'm in St. Louis for a youth leadership conference, and we are barely allotted time to sleep, let alone time for our minds to wander into the food realm. And I have no access to a kitchen! I almost begged one of the hotel staff to let me back there so I could just chop an onion for them or something, but I'm pretty sure that kind of outright obsessive behavior would warrant psychiatric intervention.

Since I am not in a position to practice new recipes, I thought I'd share a tried-and-true favorite. It is one that has already gone through countless rounds of testing, and is often requested by my friends.

Recipe for Nathan's Favorite Guacamole:

• 3 ripe avocados
• 1 small ripe tomato (I like any kind except Roma/plum for this), diced
• 1/2 of a medium-sized yellow onion, diced in small bits
• juice of 1 lime
• 1 clove garlic, roasted
• about 3 tbsp chopped cilantro
• 2 dashes Worcestershire sauce
• 5 dashes green Tabasco sauce
• 1 pinch of cumin
• Kosher salt (or your favorite good salt) to taste

Roast the clove of garlic until fragrant. Don't forget: "head" is the whole thing of garlic, made up of individual cloves. Not the other way around. I've actually mixed that up in a recipe before. My dish had so much garlic in it, I didn't get any kisses for, like, a week.

To pick out a good avocado, I like to grab the ones that are black in color and soft, but not so soft that they almost feel hollow. They should give just a little bit. They don't need to be refrigerated, but I like to stick them in the fridge before I make the guac so it's nice and cool.

Mash the avocados with the lime juice - the citrus in the lime will keep your avocados from turning brown. Mash the soft roasted garlic and add to the avocados. Mix in the remaining ingredients and serve. Purists might argue that I need a jalapeno or roasted poblano in there, but I really like my guac this way - I think it has a cool, fresh quality, and the touch of cumin and Worcestershire add a surprising little smoky flavor.

The best way to make guacamole is to keep experimenting and customize your very own favorite!