Hippy dippy baby-food making yuppie momma stuff

So baby's first "real" food is...avocado. Why -- you may ask -- would you feed your daughter a first food that you yourself don't really like? Good question. The responsible answer is that it's chock full of essential ingredients that will help her build a useful brain and sharp eyes. The culinary answer would be that I would like my daughter to have a broader and more refined palate than her parents. The other answer is it's probably the easiest thing to ever make.

The hardest thing is to determine when the avocado is ripe. I think it's when you squeeze it will all five fingers and it's mushy. You crack open the avocado in half and pop out the seed. Then, you get your trusty melon baller out (yes, another use for my mad melon balling skillz), and start scooping. Once it's all out, one must mush the mushy avocado into green goo. The first time, as you can see, I used a mortar and pestle. Simple yet suprisingly ineffective. I now use my good friend the immersion blender which is a godsend (seriously, go get an immersion blender). To save, you just put these guys into ice cube trays (use your mini offset spatula to spread the goo evenly -- you do have a mini offset spatula, right?) and voila - you have made ice cubes of avocado for many months of enjoyment.

All in all, it's a 20 minute job -- 25 minutes if you do two avocados.

Now, what else can I make that's easy -- uh, nutritous -- for baby's next food? I'm thinking peaches because they are in season -- and if there's anything a hippy dippy baby food making yuppie momma knows, it's that you should serve your baby something in season (or grown locally -- but she's not allowed to eat rhubarb yet).

In other news, the university officially granted Frank tenure yesterday. Unlike what I thought, there is no tenure fairy or a secret ritual with cloaked professors chanting in latin. He was recognized in an assembly and shook hands with the powers that be. It's fantastic, and a great accomplishment to be a tenured faculty member, so please give him a hand in your comments.

Speaking of fairies, I was reminded of brownies today. Brownies are not only chocolate treats but girl scouts of course, but they are named after a little fairy who picks up the house. Brownies (the girl scout variety) are supposed to pick up the house secretly for their parents a few times before they are inaugurated into the girl scout collective. It will be nice when MissK is a Brownie and stops hiding Daddy's keys in the morning.

Happy Friday!