Anger Burger

I Can’t Believe it’s Not Asian!

(Just wait for the avocado smoothie post.)

So, a while back I told my dad I was interested in juicing because of a theory I had that raw fruit and vegetable juices without the fiber would be okay for my intestines.  Which is what juicing is, right?  Right.  Since he is an avid garage-sale-man (he calls it “flim-flamming,” which isn’t exactly accurate) I asked him to keep on the lookout for a good used juicer.  And what should arrive at my doorstep but a brand new Jack LaLanne Power Juicer Deluxe?

He had been at Costco and there it was, significantly below retail cost and he thought, because he’s a sweet, caring, loving father, that he would just buy it for me and send it to me as a surprise.

Surprise!

Internet, heed my words: this juicer is awful.  In a flurry of excitement I ran out and bought a heap of fresh produce (a sack of carrots, a bag of beets, some apples) and hustled back home to juice those fuckers.  It was nearing dinnertime, but I figured a bracing glass of beet juice was as good a way as any to pique the appetite.  And long story short: 20 minutes later I was still trying to get that beet juice.  The motor was just too weak to process anything but apples, taking minutes for a single length of carrot to render down, and longer for a hunk of beet.  I went online thinking that I was doing something wrong, but no, other people had the same complaints.  I didn’t even take photos of the ordeal I was so distracted, which is saying something.

So, I returned it to a Costco here in L.A., who insisted on giving me cash back (!) after which I promised my pop I’d spend the money on something fun.  So I did.

Behold, the destroyer of matter!

I bought a blender.  I chose the one that looked the coolest at Target, and when I got home I set about making a smoothie.

When I was a kid my mom went on a brief smoothie-making rampage, and the important thing I remember from this period is COCONUT MILK.  Coconut milk makes everything better.  I also genuinely believe that the saturated fats from coconut milk are good for your body,  but I don’t base that on science so much as blind hope.  Nevertheless, a tablespoon or two of coconut milk isn’t going to kill anyone, and it makes the smoothie taste a bazillion times better.

This one isn’t quite ripe, but I ate it anyway.

I was also pretty shocked to find my 2nd favorite New Zealand fruit at my local Ralph’s grocery store, and at a mere $1.99 a pound!  Holy shit!  They’re called feijoa, and to my delight Kiwis pronounce it with a hard j, fee-joe-ah.  Anyhow, at 30¢ a fruit these fellas add a really fabulous tropical fruit flavor to anything.  The Kiwis have feijoa cereal, yogurt, vodka, just about everything.  It is called a “pineapple guava” in other countries, which is an accurate description.  It tastes primarily like a guava – again, a fruity, tropical flavor hard to describe with similes – but with a high acid note like a pineapple.  The skin can theoretically be eaten, but is often bitter (when not bitter is is tart, which some people don’t like but I do).  The texture of the flesh is what makes is better, perhaps, as an ingredient than an eating-fruit, as it inherited the grittiness of a guava along with the flavor.  But oh, what a flavor!  Here’s a true story:

How Feijoa Saved My Life
by Sunday Williams

When I was in New Zealand on a solo trip, one day I was out in Wellington enjoying a sunny, summery day when I suddenly had a blood sugar crash.  I was pretty familiar with the feeling, though surprised (I’d eaten breakfast) and took my time finding some lunch.  As there are a lot of Indonesian and Malaysian restaurants in NZ, I stopped at one for a noodle plate.  Except, even as I ordered the plate I felt almost faint with hunger.  Why was I so hungry?  My hands shook as I handed over the money.  I sat and waited at a table for an epic 20 minutes, too out of it to seriously consider just leaving and heading to the corner market for a candy bar while I waited.  When my food finally arrived I packed it into my eat-hole as fast as I could, not tasting a single noodle (I still only remember it as “oily”).

Within 10 minutes of leaving, I felt the familiar, toxic flush of MSG poisoning.  Now, I have a decent tolerance for MSG (I can eat a lot of Doritos, for instance, and never feel goofy) but high doses make me have a strong reaction.  I first discovered this in my early teens after eating at a Chinese restaurant with my mother and sister and then having the worst migraine of my life within an hour.  More recently I’d eaten a bowl of phở and narrowly avoided the migraine by a near-instant ingestion of Excedrin and a gallon of water.  But here, on a strange street corner in a country 10,000 miles from home?  The zingy, hyper-sensitive flush spread over my face and neck and I looked around in a panic.  I estimated I was a 20-minute fast walk from the hostel, if I could get my bearings and head straight there.  I took out a map as the flush turned into a high-pitch ringing in my ears.  My eyes were getting light-sensitive already.  My throat itched.  I determined which way to walk and within five minutes was really worried – this one was coming on hard.  That was some industrial-fucking-strength MSG.  I skidded to a stop next to a small drugstore and ran inside looking for aspirin.  Except, out of all my preparation for this trip, I didn’t know that:

• acetaminophen is called “paracetamol”
• aspirin is generally not sold as a generic and is instead called a brand name like “Dispirin”

Which led to me looking for painkillers for probably 10 minutes in the store while I became increasingly disoriented.  I was well into the floaters of a full migraine, the vision-blocking clots of light that hit just before the pain really does.  I grabbed a few boxes of Dispirin and practically ran my ass back to the hostel.

For the next 4 hours I lay in a dark room (thank Cheebus I got a private room) sweating and gripping the sheets.  I draped a wet sock across my face in lieu of owning a washcloth.  By the time the worst of it broke I remembered that I had a pint of feijoa icecream in the freezer.  I crept out to retrieve it and terrified some German tourists by hissing menacingly at them as I approached the fridge.  I crept back to my room with the icecream and a spoon, where, in the dark, I ate it.  And it was the best thing I’ve eaten in my life.

Now, it might not have really been the best thing, but at that moment it was.  Sweet-tart, fruity without tasting like candy, creamy, cold.  The last sharp talons of the migraine left as I ate it.  Sugar surged through my veins. I would survive.

Fin.

Anyway, so smoothies.  I was super-excited to see the feijoa and set about making a banana, feijoa, mango, berry, yogurt, coconut milk and maple syrup smoothie.

I believe there was also some orange juice in there.  Looking at the photo I’m going to have to vote yes, yes there was also orange juice.    Also!  Algae, there is a spoonful or two of green algae somewhere in there.

Result?  Blender works great.  I read some reviews online out of curiosity, and most people complain it is too loud, which I have to say: the engine is housed in METAL.  Yes, it is too loud.  But it’s also a blender I didn’t expect it to sound like mice sighing.  Other people complain it can’t even blend frozen fruit to which I say, huh? It suffers from the same problems most home blenders do, which is that the underpowered blade creates an airpocket that doesn’t promote easy blending (you have to stop and stir it a few times), but it blended with enough success that we were slurping down a totally fucking awesome smoothie in a mere five minutes.

In conclusion: thank you dad!  Thanks for the awesome blender.  I know it’s not the same as helping me try and healthify myself with juicing, but it’s close.  Actually, it’s not close as I have already had a milkshake for breakfast this morning (TRUE!), but still.  I love it.  It’s perfect.  And I have money leftover to buy a new pepper grinder!  Yay for papa!