Thirsty Thursday: Avocados and the Great Oasis Reformation of 2024
Sarah McCarthy’s Thirsty Thursday column is brought to you each week thanks to Invercargill-based law firm Mee & Henry Law.
Sarah McCarthy’s Thirsty Thursday column is brought to you each week thanks to Invercargill-based law firm Mee & Henry Law
THIRSTY THURSDAY 18
It’s a funny time of year where I like to play a game called Do I Have Hayfever Or A Really Bad Cold and the blossoms are coming out but it’s 10degC and I am so tired of eating hearty wintery food, so we shiver through sushi at dinnertime.
I have an absolute glut of avocados because I ordered them online, thinking I would set up my world famous, patent pending Avocado Factory where I keep the main lot in stasis in the crisper bin and ripen a few at a time with a dreary banana in a paper bag in the water heater cupboard.
What ended up happening was that I shoved the lot in there in their snug box, forgot about them and now we have 20 ripe avocados clamouring to be eaten. I don’t actually know what to do with avocados other than have them on toast, as guacamole to be scooped up with corn chips or as part of the Mexikiwi fan favourite, Alison Holst’s vegetarian baked bean nachos. I looked online and there were recipes for cooked avocado which made me feel uncomfortable (“Avocado fries!”) or delicious-looking salads that unfortunately require criminally expensive other ingredients like cucumber or things that sound vastly grim like avocado chocolate mousse.
I would understand that if you had a day- in-day-out supply of avocados on a tree outside your whare you would certainly be looking to use them up in any way shape or form, but it looks just as hard to make avocado mousse as it is to make proper chocolate mousse and I would be much more likely to do that than make dubious avo mousse wherein with each spoonful I would wait for the inevitable ick as my brain booms “DOESN’T THIS TASTE A BIT GARLICKY TO YOU, CHILD?” and then I will have wasted time, avocado as well as a block of nice chocolate.
Also Oasis. Oasis Oasis Oasis. Since the minute the news broke that Oasis were re-forming and going on tour because one of them is going through a spendy divorce, Mr mr has talked about Oasis eight or nine times, played several songs for the children and wondered who he would go to the concert with if their rumoured international tour comes to pass and it hasn’t even been 24 hours. They’ve also been on the radio all day, even National Radio, which has made me pause and take stock of my long-distance relationship with Jesse Mulligan. It’s not that I don’t like Oasis, I just don’t really think about them at all, like milk or the skirting boards.
I mean, I’ve sung along to Wonderwall at parties and nodded politely if I’ve been man-harangued about them by some dude. I remember when I first heard them and - it sounds like something out of a book - I was at the upstairs Dee St flat of an incredibly cool older girl and she said, “I’ve heard about this new band, they’re supposed to be the next big thing” and proceeded to play the CD. At the time I was probably in awe of anyone with the ready cash to be able to just buy a CD they hadn’t pined over and saved for and don’t really remember much else.
The Great Oasis Reformation of 2024 has, however, thrown up a lot of nostalgic, 90s era flotsam and jetsam on the internet that has me feeling wistful for those days, before I ever had hayfever or a mortgage and when I had magnificent bewbs and two pairs of Doc Martens and the Best Top I Ever Owned, a sage green knit cotton from Just Jeans that went with everything.
Children heed me. One day Chappel Roan and Olivia Rodrigo will play at Gibbston Valley and you will be there, wine drunk with your cronies, wearing SPF 500 sunscreen and cry-singing to Pink Pony Club. If you’re lucky.