April 19th was one of the hottest days we’ve had this year, so if you stayed home last Sunday or went to the beach instead of heading inland, I’ll share a few treasures I discovered among over 300 vendors at the Fallbrook Avocado Festival.
What’s the first thing you look for in an Avocado Festival? Guacamole! Six dollars bought a giant scoop of “Holy Guacamole” over salty chips with optional jalapenos and extra lime juice on the side. This first prize winning guacamole was creamy with just a mild taste of garlic.
San Diego’s California Quivers provided frozen fresh fruit drinks in a choice of flavors: lemon, mango and strawberry. If you’re undecided, you can have a cup with all three and it’s delicious and healthy since it’s made from real fruit.
Cold Stone Creamery’s avocado ice cream rumor turned out to be true, and yummy. The secret recipe? Five gallons of sweet cream base plus two big avocados makes a smooth, pale green ice cream. Avocados really don’t have a strong flavor, so it would be hard to tell with your eyes closed that avocado was the secret ingredient. Sweet, rich and cold made it a hit on this hot afternoon.
Non-food vendors of note included Corian Creations, a Carlsbad company that hand crafts cutting boards out of left over pieces of Corian® countertop. Corian® makes a perfect cutting board material since it is non-porous, 100% hygienic and long lasting. The cutting boards come in a variety of unique shapes: apples, hearts, turtles, pigs, rabbits, dogs, cats, Angelfish, coyotes and more, as well as conventional rectangles. 
One vendor who I felt missed the mark, however, offered a new gadget to remove the pits from avocados. Usually I’m an enthusiastic supporter of even a lukewarm entrepreneurial start up, but this one surprised me by how bad an idea it actually seems to be.
The fellow behind the table proudly explained how it works: cut your avocado in half and put the half with the pit inside this plastic gizmo with prongs and then push the prongs all the way through from the outside of the avocado until it reaches the pit and pushes it out.
Do you know how I remove the pit from an avocado? After I cut it in half, I take the knife that’s already in my hand and gently tap it into the pit and then give it a little twist which releases the pit.
It’s pretty simple already! No digging around in a drawer for some special gadget and no cleaning up some prongy thing afterwards. Okay, maybe it will become the new Chia Pet sensation and you can come back and say, “I told you so,” but for now, I’m leaving this one alone.
My favorite hidden treasure of the Fallbrook Avocado Festival is Bella Vado, a company in Valley Center that cold presses 100% pure avocado oil from the fruit grown on their own family farm. Not only do they bottle the oil for cooking, they also make lip balm, soap and avocado oil body lotion. I’m especially grateful for the body lotion which is doing its best right now to soothe the sunburn I brought home with me!
Thanks to Fallbrook, the world’s avocado capitol, and their Chamber of Commerce for this kickoff to California’s avocado season. For more avocado information, go to the California Avocado Commission.
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