It's summer in my backyard

Smoothies make me think of buying saccharine drinks from the town mall's Orange Julius when I was too young to buy anything more than cheap lip gloss with sparkles and frosted eyeshadows. I suppose I thought the Orange Julius was an accessory itself. The drinks had their faddish moment, and we sipped them slowly, so we could be sure to be seen walking with them. I drank them because my friends drank them, or rather, we heard that people were drinking them.

A smoothie as we know it is a relatively new thing, but it's always been cool. The Oxford English Dictionary dates the word's most recent use to 1977. Before that the word was used to denote someone suave, cultured and debonair. As the Princeton Weekly Review of May 24, 1929 says, "Smoothie..indicates savoir faire, a certain je ne sais quoi... Clothes do much to make the smoothie."

How intuitive was I at thirteen! And the smoothie that I made today is all that - a vivacious combination of frozen cherries, blueberries and raspberries. Now, I like my smoothies like my milkshakes - really thick, so thick I always consider using a spoon to eat it and then ultimately decide it's less fun that way. That being said, you could add some orange juice (à la my eighth-grade self) and that would make it a perfect slurping consistency. You could also add flax meal if you're feeling saucy.


Smoothie

1/2 cup frozen berries
1 ripe banana
1/2 cup plain yogurt
smashed ice

Smash your desired amount of ice (maybe 3, 4 ice cubes) in the food processor. Then add the rest of the ingredients and blend until the mixture is still a little bit chunky.