Gad, I'm so suggestible. This post has me thinking about eating the avocado we have in the kitchen.

Tonight I'm making a semi-homemade tofu stirfy à la Stepford Wife Sandra Lee. Meaning: there's this boxed pad thai-y thing (Simply Asian brand or something close to that). It comes with rice noodles and seasoning. You add the protein o' choice, some bean sprouts, any other vegetables you like.

Make it 2. I've always heard it's hard to get an Avocado tree to pollinate, and I just looked up why. It seems that the flowers go through a cycle where on 1 day, the male reproductive bits are active, and on the next day the female bits are. So if you have one tree, the odds of pollination are low and rely on a few of the flowers to be a little out of sync on that cycle. So more than likely you'll end up with a million flowers (literally), but only a handful of actual avocados. If you have 2 trees (ideally 2 slightly different but compatible varieties with differing cycles), there's a greater likelihood that some of the flowers will be out of sync.

The more you know! That's pretty darn interesting actually. :)

Or, graft a male branch on a female tree.

I don't think that works for avocados. The trees aren't male or female, all trees have both male and female reproductive structures. They just alternate which one is open at any one time.

I think most avocados have to be grafted anyway don't they?

Yes, avocados that are planted from seed need to be grafted to product fruit. I thought that was because of the male/female thing, but I didn't look it up first.

There are so many avocado trees in So Cal older neighborhoods that pollination is usually not an issue (and why I end up with TONS of avocados when my clients have ripe fruit). I'm going to miss that part of my job.

Let's see...

Artichoke-chipotle dip served with baguette slices, also some olive oil and peach-flavored white balsamic vinegar with the baguette.

Then tri-tip (cooked medium, which was a tad overdone for what it was, but only slightly over and still pretty good), asparagus (screwed that one up, forgot to blanch before sauteeing, so it was pretty bitter), sliced tomato and cucumber. There was supposed to be buttered corn with chili powder, but stupid head (me) forgot to take it out of the oven.

After 1st round of game, a fruit & cheese plate: strawberries and grapes, with a truffle goat cheese, served with some more baguette slices but we determined that the cheese tasted best warmed up and eaten without bread. And a bowl of cappuccino-flavored almonds (addictive! Tasted somewhat like Cookie Crisp cereal, but nuttier).

Not bad. Not epic, but not bad. Had some good company, some good rounds of Apples to Apples, and in general, for an evening planned only about 6 hours before it started, a good night.

Chili made with textured veg protein because I'm just that virtuous.

Today, anyway.

We're having Chicken Tofu Burgers with a shoyu/mirin glaze tonight.