This is supposedly the recipe for one of my favorite little dishes even though when I call this a recipe I am reminded of Christine Muhlke's quotation of a French Chef upon his eating one of Alice Waters' salads, "That's not cooking. That's shopping."

Buy yourself a good avocado. In the past, with the certainty and bigotry of youth I would eat none but Haas avocados. (The correct spelling is Hass, but "Haas" has got to be the most widespread misspelling in the world even though this provides little comfort since I used it for over thirty years, leading God knows how many innocents astray. Plug 'em both into Google along with "avocado"and see what I mean.) Later, as I became a more knowledgeable eater and speller, I discovered other good varieties like Gwen and Bacon.

Get some good, sweet orange-colored citrus fruit: Page mandarins and various clementines are at the top of my list, preferably seedless ones. Early season Satsumas are a good second choice, and hey, just plain old tangerines or even navel oranges will do.

Mix bite-size pieces of fruit and avocado. Sometimes I squeeze a lime onto this, or some Eureka or Meyer lemon. Grind lots of fresh black pepper over the mixture and distribute a light flurry of salt. Mix well and repeat. Grind until you're tired of grinding. A cloud of black pepper fumes should be rising.

Telicherry pepper is all the rage now, but frankly the freshness is more important than the variety. Watch for women wearing saris, and buy your spices there in small amounts. That last point's the hard one for many Americans, and I started practicing it only the last few years as I finally discarded the last of some bottles I had acquired before I left Texas thirty years ago. Well, hell, the stuff in them had lost all flavor by the Reagan administration, so they were sitting there unused.

And no, of course I didn't recycle the bottles themselves. I cleaned them up and have stuffed them over the years with California Laurel (Umbellularia californica) that I pluck in the wild and dry. Nice gift for visitors.