Background: There is this restaurant named Gabriel's between Los Alamos and Santa Fe I used to go to a lot when I lived in, and even when I was only visiting New Mexico regularly. The food is upscale, by which I mean, somewhat unauthentic. There is nothing wrong with though - it is good food. The main reason you'd go there is to have the Guacamole, because they make it fresh right before your eyes. Pretty much the only reason actually. Anyway, at some point it occurred to us that what they did was pretty easy, so we asked the guy preparing it what the exact ingredients he was using. We then went home and attempted to recreate it in a controlled environment. I would say that we succeeded. You want to make this right before you serve it. It goes off pretty quickly. Serve with chips as a snack or along with sour cream with enchiladas, or other main dish.

• 4-8 avocados
• 1-2 tomatoes, diced
• ½ onion, chopped
• 1-2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 bushel of cilantro
• 1 lime (or lemon)
• salt to taste

Chop the avocados in half, remove the seed and scoop out the goodness. Cut the lime in half and squeeze the juices out. Mix with other ingredients and stir with a wire whisk. Usually I find juice from half of the lime is sufficient, so use half a lime, and taste to see if you need more.

To me, guacamole without cilantro is just wrong. Some like to add jalapeños, I can take 'em or leave 'em for guacamole. The lime juice lengthens the lifespan of guacamole considerably, so make sure you don't skip that.

Mike

My high school and CORE coding buddy Mike came up yesterday and brought his wife Sarah so they could attend my much anticipated Halloween party. It is hard for me to convey just how nice it was to see Mike. Sarah is also from Los Alamos, so I had the rare opportunity to talk with people who grew up on green chili and who know about Mrs. Moss and have heard about Mr. Farley's Butt-Ear. They stayed at my place last night and this morning we wondered around the city of Beacon. I am equally looking forward to seeing Tyler in February now!

Mike, Mike's manager, and Mike's weed

Anyway, the enchiladas came out like clockwork. I've got a fairly established procedure for it now. I threatened to give people costumes if they didn't bring their own, but alas... they were not worried, because most didn't come dressed up. Enchiladas, Posole and Guacamole were a huge success, and everyone was super impressed with Mike's fire breathing prowess. When I get the slides back (and if they come out) I will scan them and put them on my web site, along with the digital general party milling about pictures.

For some reason, iTunes "randomly" chose to play Born Slippy like three times during the course of the party. Granted, they were different versions of the same song, but still. The third time I swore vociferously and got up to advanced to the next song. My consternation made Steve laugh quite vocally, which is always fun, because he is usually so quiet.

I was so glad that Mike was able to meet all my friends. I love it when friends from different aspects of my life come together and get along well. It sort of affirms what I already know: my friends rock!