What the hell is an avocado shake?

I’ve been living in California for a few years now, and my avocado consumption has been through the roof! And for good reason—the avocados here (or being imported here) are just amazing. I love guacamole with tortilla chips, tostadas, quesadillas, and especially if it has a few chunks of shrimp or crab. It’s creamy goodness. I also love my avocado toast. A food so great yet has been synonymous to the stereotypical millennial food culture of eating expensive shit while being broke.

Yes, it could be expensive if you buy your avocado toast in a hipster restaurant in LA that sells it at seventeen dollars a pop; but if you make it yourself, it’s not too bad price-wise.

As a Filipino, before living here, I’ve eaten avocado by itself, or consume it as a dessert in the form of an avocado shake or avocado–halo-halo hybrid (instead of ube ice cream as the thickener, it’s avocado along with other accouterments typical in halo-halo). 

But whenever I mention this to my friends or coworkers who are not from the Philippines, they get weirdly shocked about avocados being a dessert. They’ve never heard of it. Their faces just look so confused in disbelief. Well, I felt the same way too. They don’t know what they’re missing. 

Thinking about it takes me back to when I was a kid in our tita’s house in Cebu. It was an old Filipino-style home that was probably erected before World War II. Our parents would leave me there, along with my two brothers, whenever they go out of town for business. I didn’t like it because there was nothing to do there. There was no PlayStation or PC where I could play games. 

We didn’t have friends there. We would just watch television and practice piano. But during merienda, my big fat smile would light up because we get to drink freshly made avocado shakes. It’s mixed with creamy condensada and fresh milk, then blended with crushed ice. The perfect summer drink to beat the summer heat.

I’ll always love my avocado toast, but I’ll be damn sure that I’ll be having an ice-cold avocado shake all the time, every time.