An avocado adventure

I had an onion bagel with avocado today.

In the latter part of the morning I went to the coffeeshop with Amanda to work. It is always easier, I feel, to keep your discipline when there is someone else around. I do much good work at home in the early morning while Clayton is still asleep just so I can look at him with disdain and tut-tut when he finally emerges from his room. But once he leaves the house I sometimes lose my focus, especially if I do not have to call into any meetings. So it was that I arranged to meet Amanda; I had not eaten all morning and I was hungry and wanted some fresh orange juice.

The last time we were at the coffeeshop Amanda had gotten an onion bagel with fresh avocado and she got the same thing again today. She broke the avocado slices into smaller cubes with a butter knife and spread it unevenly across her bagel. The bagel was toasted lightly, and flakes of toasted onion crisps fell to her plate as she lifted it this way and that. She did this with her plate next to her on the couch while artfully balancing her laptop in her lap, then held the bagel to her mouth to eat it.

The coffeeshop was unusually crowded with plenty of eye-candy and yet all I noticed was Amanda eating the bagel. I had a bran muffin myself and was nowhere near as satisfied with it as she looked. Amanda has this look about her when she has eaten well – she leans back and gets a dreamy look in her eyes. Once after a meal that I had cooked for her she leaned back in her seat, rubbed her belly with her right hand and said simply, “Mi piace.” It was the highest compliment I have ever gotten.

The French have this expression they use to refer to a need for something to happen – il faut – which I like using because there is nothing in English which comes close. Il faut conveys a singular urgency and necessity that no word in English can replicate. That urgency and necessity reflected exactly and completely my state of mind about the bagel and avocado – I most absolutely had to have one for myself.

I had never had bagels with avocado before and it seemed to me like a strange combination – especially with an onion bagel. Still, when mine came I went through the same ritual Amanda did with it, for fear of not having the same experience. The bagel was toasted to the point where the tips were crisp and crunchy to the bite and had the smell and taste of something burnt, but the inside was still soft and doughy and had all the goodness that bread and bread products have. The avocado was fresh and sweet and not all of it would spread easily on the bagel, but I did the best I could. I rationed my avocado with the bagel that I had perfectly so that my last mouthful was one with just slightly more avocado than all the rest. It was, as experiences go, as satisfying as they come.

I had an onion bagel, toasted, with avocado today, and it changed my life.