It doesn’t look like summer is going to give up and let fall slip in through the back door anytime soon, so the best idea for the moment is to adjust. One of the good ways to adjust is to eat cool, refreshing food, like a lovely chopped salad with avocado vinaigrette dressing.
When I moved to Roanoke many years ago, among my first loves was the introduction to avocado vinaigrette salad dressing at Carlo’s, when it was downtown. Carlo’s is Mediterranean and so is the avocado dressing. That means it’s healthy, in addition to tasting like a small spoon of heaven.
I have to say up front that I have never liked avocados in any form, save for this dressing, which I first ate accidentally (my date said, “Would you taste this? I’m a little nervous about it”). I was simply wowed and became a die-hard advocate of Carlo’s.
But I never made the dressing because it simply didn’t occur to me to buy avocados, or, more frankly, that I could make it. Even an approximation. Until today when I was at Kroger, found six medium avocados for a low price and put my whole foot in the lake.
I brought the avocados home, halved and peeled them and threw the fruit into the blender. I poured in a few ounces of a fine Mediterranean olive oil (bought yesterday at Bethlehem Restaurant and Grocery on Williamson Road) and a delightful white pear-infused balsamic vinegar from Olivetto, the vinegar and oil specialist on Electric Road.
I used about three ounces of both the vinegar and the oil and poured them into the blender with the avocado. I turned it on high and presto–there was a delicious avocado vinaigrette. Easy-peasy and so very refreshing that I simply wanted to eat it by the spoonful (but I held out for a salad).
Dan Smith is an award-winning Roanoke-based writer/author/photographer and a member of the Virginia Communications Hall of Fame (Class of 2010). His blog, fromtheeditr.com, is widely read and he has authored seven books, including the novel CLOG! He is founding editor of a Roanoke-based business magazine and a former Virginia Small Business Journalist of the Year (2005).
