Chilled Avocado Soup

Psychic's depiction: seconds before my death

Well, it's official. Summer is back. You can tell from the longer days, the watermelons in the supermarket, and the sticky parentless children running around everywhere. Oh, and the sun is trying to kill us again. Last year I was living in LA, so the sun attacking me was annoying but manageable. But I made the dumb mistake of moving to Chicago, which was originally swampland that some idiots built huts on. Not much has changed. So nowadays when I say that the sun is trying to kill me,  it's more like the sun, along with his homicidal buddies the lake and the air, are all conspiring to kill me so they can live in my apartment and throw parties. The point is, we're gonna need refreshment. Which usually means something fruity and sweet. But you can only do so much fruity and sweet on a hot day before you start to feel all of that sugar melting into a caramel inside your stomach, and that's not as much fun as it sounds. The answer is avocados. Granted, I've lived in southern California for years, so, legally, I'm required to solve every problem with avocados, but this time it actually makes things better.


Ingredients:

2 Avocados
1 Lime
1/2 a Red Onion
1/3 cup Milk (Thanks to hipsters and their ilk, there are WAY too many options of weird nonsense milks to choose from. So don't. Just get actual milk. The kind that comes from a cow, and has some fat in it. You know, milk.)
1/4 cup Vegetable Stock
1 tsp Kosher Salt
1/4 tsp Cumin
1/4 tsp Cayenne Pepper
An unspecified amount of Sour Cream and Cilantro

The first thing you're gonna need to do is chastise your avocados. Because once you cut them, avocados turn brown and gross. Surprisingly fast, too. It's pretty much their national pastime to wreck your day. So let your avocados know in a firm, but caring tone of voice, that you're not gonna be putting up with their crap today. Keep lecturing until you feel like you've really gotten through to your avocados and made a difference in their lives. Then, like any good parent, start preparing for when they inevitably try to betray you. Once you've gotten that taken care of, choppity chop chop your red onion into tiny bits until no one can identify its remains. Add in the cumin and cayenne, and set it aside. Peel and slice your avocados, and throw them in a bowl along with your kosher salt, and mash them with a fork. The large grains of salt you get with the kosher stuff will help punch through the avocado and break it down into a delicious goop. This is where your avocados will stab you in the back, despite all of the progress we made together. So add in the juice from your lime to keep things in check. Avocados may love turning brown, but citrus is having none of that nonsense. Citrus doesn't deal well with change. This party started off green, and as far as citrus is concerned, it's gonna end up green.

That's good enough to almost make up for the heat. Almost.

Now it's time to add your spiced onions in with the avocado mixture, along with your milk and vegetable stock. Stir that nonsense together, cover it, and throw it in the fridge to think about what it's done. Let it sit there for at least a couple hours, but overnight would be even better. Then, whenever the sun is pulling that "95 degrees with 80% humidity" nonsense, go to your fridge and pull out your avocado sludge. Throw it in a bowl and top it with a tablespoon of sour cream, and some chopped cilantro. Or don't, because it's super hot and you don't even have the energy to produce fully fledged thoughts, let alone add crap on top of your soup. Either way. The point is, even though the air around you is hot and sticky, that doesn't mean you have to be. Well, maybe it does, but you don't have to feel like it. Instead you can feel cool, and refreshed, and full of avocados. Like a conquistador, minus all of the rape and murder!