smoothies

It was very warm and sunny yesterday. If it hadn’t been for the snowbanks lining the paths and parking lots, I would have been able to believe that spring had come upon us. I went grocery shopping in a hoodie and no coat, and even turned the air on cold in my air.

I tell you this because New Haven is something else.

I realize that we are due for more snow later this week. Wednesday, I think. Despite the inevitability of the snow, it has been (comparatively) warm and sunny since the last time it snowed, which was last Tuesday.

So the fact that you can’t find a road in New Haven with more than a lane-and-a-half plowed (that is 1.5 lanes on a two-lane, two-directional road) is kind of frustrating. I realize that the on-street parking doesn’t help with the snow removal problem, but it also exasperates the problem because now cars are parking next to mountains of grit and ice that already occupy half of the lane. So, effectively, we have less than one lane on a bunch of roads.

I know they do the parking ban thing here. I just… it makes me feel cranky. But the roads otherwise and outside of New Haven were clear and dry and I enjoyed my jaunt down to get a new shower curtain liner, a 2014 calendar (finally), and a few bags of fresh vegetables.

I made a smoothie yesterday. I’m thinking seriously about pinning Mom’s smoothie recipe – or at least about printing it out and putting it into my recipe binder. It was a nice smoothie, because I’d remembered to pick up plain yogurt and I had frozen fruit and orange juice in the freezer.

I think I’ve discovered that frozen bananas, when blended up, have a lovely ice-cream-y texture. They also don’t taste half-bad. I used to get so mad at Mom when she would make us a chocolate milkshake and blend a banana into it.

I’ve realized that it wasn’t the taste that I objected to (although there IS something about creamy chocolate milkshakes that sometimes deserves to be left unadulterated), but the texture.

I’m told that when I was little, I was given orange juice with pulp and as I tried to drink it out of a sippy cup, I cried. There were worms in my orange juice. I have the oddest memory of the texture, and I suspect I might have been slightly less upset if the “worms” hadn’t become pinched in the spout of the sippy cup, to wave around against my tongue.

Anyway, banana isn’t quite like that, but it is still a texture issue that is entirely solved simply by freezing the banana first. And since I’m utterly incapable of eating anything in a timely manner, this is two birds with one stone.

My smoothie came out like ice cream or frozen yogurt, and I ate it with a spoon. I have a tendency to be heavy-handed with the frozen fruit. I ate it, and I was happy.

I think I will have another when I go home tonight. After all, I’ll need something to do besides bite my nails when Syracuse plays tonight.

…in five minutes. I’m out.