Hot Guacamole

The second course for the "Come to Where Fresh is" dinner was focused on salsa. When I think of a true example of what "fresh" is, I think about salsa. I remember the first time I had fresh salsa, it was at a fellow cooks house during a party he was throwing.

I may have been a little behind when it came to trying new foods when I was younger. I grew up like most kids, eating a lot of foods out of cans, boxes, freezers and nearby pizza shops.

My dad had a garden from time to time and it produced fresh produce, but we didn't know about cilantro or cumin.

So, now, when I think about freshness I can't help but go back to picking up a familiar tortilla chip and scooping up what was "salsa" (not like the salsa I was used to from a jar), and just being completely blown away. Something as simple as salsa had me completely lost for words and feeling very ignorant to what I was being exposed to. When I asked Bill (I think that's what his name is) where he got the salsa, he said "from my back yard". It was the freshest of anything at that point that I had every tasted. It was amazing, like it was just mixed minutes before hand with all the flavors at their absolute peak.

My interpretation is a little different.

There's a hot Guacamole cube on top of a fresh slice of Lambert Farms heirloom tomato, topped with whipped clear salsa and a dehydrated heirloom tomato, along with a "tortilla chip" (toasted tortilla mixed with Isomalt) and some cilantro puree.



The flavors are there and familiar to mostly everyone, hopefully by now, but the textures are different and altered to give the brain a new reference when thinking about the familiar.

Some may think this silly and completely unnecessary, and I've been battling myself to these same reasons and thoughts, but I do think it's important to connect with diners on new levels. To introduce new ways of thinking about things. What limits do we put on ourselves forever if we don't alter what has always just been accepted?

I personally like to think that a dish, any dish, can be ripped apart to it's core ingredients, textures, techniques, flavors and put back together to represent an option a new approach.