juice it up

one of my many christmas presents to myself was a juicer. proof positive that i was becoming a foodie even before i started this blog. don't people that juice seem superior? they do, don't they? i just wanted to be one of them. i bought this amazing cookbook last year that was recommended to me by a real foodie, a gourmet even, named val. the book is called "the food i love" and it is by an australian chef named neil perry. this book is gorgeous. the photography is amazing, the recipes range from simple to exotic (that is if you consider squid ink paella exotic) and it all starts with a page on juicing. no actual recipes (if you stick with this story, you will find that was a problem), just this, "my wife sam and i usually start the day with a fresh juice." they already sound superior, don't they? i can just imagine them in their amazing kitchen with all of their good kitchen stuff like $900 espresso machines, sub zero fridge packed with fresh organic produce, and a counter top with a hole cut out of it so you can swipe in your cut vegetables sending them down a chute and into a compost bin so you can pack your fridge with more fresh organic produce from your own amazing garden that you have in your gorgeous backyard. i digress. mr. perry continues, " it makes you feel healthy on the inside, for the very simple reason that it is so good for you. . . we vary the fruit and vegetables to reflect the season," plus they probably have to see what is growing in their compost rich soil filled sustainable garden i'm sure, "and that always keeps us looking for the next combination." i wish my husband and i did stuff like "look for the next combination" of fruits and vegetables for our morning juice. we don't. he is not a fan of juice, especially not pulpy juice. actually he has a long list of food aversions, but i'll save that for another time. so, you can kind of see the allure, can't you? the new year was coming. i wanted to be healthy, thin, happy, glamorous . . . juicing was definitely the answer.

carrot, beetroot (aka beets), apple, orange and ginger. that was the first of their favorite blends. I don’t have a vegetable garden, so i myself over to whole foods and threw down about 15 bucks for the ingredients minus the oranges, because we do, at least, have the most fruitful orange tree known to man right in our back yard (ha!!). I come home, carefully prep all of the ingredients and then unpack the juicer. this thing looks scary, and as it should. i mean it is going to take a carrot and pulverize it, and turn it into juice for superior people. i kind of felt like i should have some supervision, someone to call 911 when my hair gets caught in the juicer and half of my face is torn off, but no one was home, so i just went for it. i turned the motor on and was both frightened and impressed by its power. now here's the problem. how much of each ingredient do i put in? why can't their “favorite combinations” include quantities? i'll just work it out. i cut an enormous carrot in half and popped it down the feeding tube thing . . . Wow! I swear this thing is not a juicer, but instead some sort of molecular reassembler, cause it went from carrot to juice much quicker than one would think. working my way through the color wheel, i opted next for the orange, but when i read that i had to peel the thing first i omitted it. It would take too long; I didn’t have that kind of time. I wanted fresh juice and I wanted it now. i promptly moved to the beets, three of them, and isn’t the color of beet juice so beautiful? it would make the most amazing lipstick color. then a couple of apples, and then, what i think may have been my fatal flaw, a 3-inch piece of ginger. So there it was, my very first pitcher full of superior people juice. it did look healthy and beautiful and delicious, but you know when you go and get a facial and they hit you with steam, and exfoliate you and squeeze out the badness and then slather you in sweet smelling moisturizer and you feel so good, and you know, you just know that your skin must be glowing, you must look young, and all dewy and then you get that first glance in the mirror and instead your face looks like it has been run over by a truck carrying thousands of angry bees that escaped and then stung you after the truck ran you over . . . that's what this juice tasted like. just like that. So much build up, and then utter disgust. Disgusting, really, really disgusting. I tried to talk myself through it. Come on, jen, you spent a lot of money on this juicer. This is so healthy, so beautiful; this is what superior people drink in the morning. DRINK IT! So I did. I drank it. A little itty-bitty bit of it, then I put the rest of it in the fridge assuring myself that it would taste better once it was really cold.

4 days later I poured the juice down the drain. So if anyone has any good juicing recipes, I’m all ears.