The Avocado Effect
July 25, 2021
I haven’t cooked much lately, not that anyone’s complaining. My kids have been all over town with end of school / start of summer activities, and take-out has been our best friend. That said, sometimes I can’t even pull that off. Between my career and parental duties, I’m just happy if I get a shower. Working from home through COVID has been great for more work/life balance and has had its advantages, but more times than not, I realize it’s 8pm and I still haven’t eaten. There’s no clear end to my workday, it seems, and I need to rectify that.
Enter, frozen food. A delicacy of my youth that my Gen Z span all but shun.
They come with instructions that correlate to the wattage rating of your microwave, but I prefer to live on the edge and go off memory from the last time I nuked a mini pizza and let ‘er rip. Only my memory can’t be trusted. And that right there is the root cause of many a burnt pizza. The difference a mere thirty seconds can make on low grade cheese is charring.
Left: 00:02:30, Right: 00:03:00
I call these thirty seconds the “avocado effect.” You know, that mysterious sweet spot an avocado has between rock solid and guacamole gold? Ya, well, every microwave has one too. And apparently mine is 00:02:30 for a Red Barron four cheese personal pan pizza.
Will I remember that factoid the next time I nuke a pizza? Not likely.
I no longer beat myself up for my “cooking” fails. In fact, I half expect them to happen. And most of the time I still eat whatever I messed up no matter how bad it looks because I’m also extremely lazy and have low food standards. But this time there was no hope. I couldn’t even pry the reflective cooking disk from the crusted over cheese lava.
So, I set the smoking charcoal puck on the counter to cool before tossing it into the trash and tried again because I’m no quitter. Unfortunately, Kid #2 strolled into the kitchen (with boyfriend in tow), and saw the damage before it was tossed. There were looks.
What matters here is I finally ate. It was a glorious, heartburn inducing experience that I will likely repeat six months from now, and the fact that no one bothered me for the four minutes it took to scarf it down was worth every penny of the burnt pizza I wasted.