When I drove Cherry to Green County so she could work at the beach, the two of us stayed with our good friend Nora Charles. I had been great friends with Nora before I moved to Indianapolis. Nora has the ability to make anyone laugh regardless of the situation. She is literally the funniest girl I have ever met. She is one of the easiest people to talk to as well. No matter how long it is until the next time I see her, I’m always immediately at ease and never worried if things will be awkward. most of the havoc my friends and I wreaked upon Green County started at her house. She lived way out in the boondocks roughly ten minutes from town. I once got lost in the mint fields surrounding her house (It was dark, and it’s a lot easier to do than you would think especially when ditches are involved.).
Cherry was exhausted from work that Saturday, so while she retired to the living room couches to sleep, Nora and I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning catching up on each others lives and reminiscing about the old days and the crazy stunts we pulled while our posse concocted conniving, stupid, yet hilarious and fun plans.
“So, I went to the store the other day,” started Nora, “and all when I got home I realized that the only thing I had bought was fruit! I love fruit, but I just didn’t realize that that’s all I bought! I just got a new smoothie maker, but I’ve never made a smoothie before.”
“Well your shopping spree was perfect then! Let’s make some now!”
Nora immediately fetched her brand spanking new smoothie maker while I dragged all the different fruits and yogurt from the fridge. After slight deliberation, we settled on making raspberry strawberry smoothies. I had already begun washing and cutting strawberries when a distressed Nora exclaimed, “Sequoia! You have got to be freaking kidding me! We don’t have any ice.”
“Are you serious?! Dang, that sucks.”
“I know…all we have are these frozen bottles of water.”
(Don’t try this part of the recipe at home…it would not be a wise decision…)
It only took one look exchange between the two of us before we realized what needed to happen. The water bottles would have to be destroyed. Nora placed the two frozen Ice Mountain water bottles in the microwave for thirty seconds. This way, the ice would melt away from the plastic, giving us room to hack at the bottle. I simply continued cutting the tops off the bundle of strawberries. Nora took a large chefs knife and wacked the top of the bottle off. She continued to pry the end of the knife between the ice and the plastic in an effort to peel the plastic away from the ice. if Nora hadn’t been so skilled with a knife and done this similar task before, I’m not sure it would have been accomplished. After a good laugh from both of us, Nora plopped the water bottle shaped ice chunk directly into the smoothie maker. Strawberry yogurt, strawberries, and raspberries soon followed. “There is no way this is going to blend,” I stated with absolutely no confidence in the smoothie makers ability to do it’s job. Turns out, I was right.
What were a pair of very thirsty girls to do in this situation? well the answer was simple. We had to chop the block of ice. Once again, Nora fetched the chef’s knife except this time, I took the lead. I began stabbing the side of the ice cube in hopes some would chunk off making the smoothies job easier. our ultimate goal was to completely remove the obnoxiously large chunk of ice, but the bottom was caught in the blade. Nora and I continually laughed at the spectacle while wondering out loud how in the world Cherry hadn’t stormed in yelling at us to be quiet. Eventually we were able to wiggle the ice chunk out of the blade, but not without covering our hands in half blended smoothie. From here, the ice chunk was placed in a a large yellow plastic bowl (upon retrospect, plastic was probably not the wisest of decisions) where I continued to stab the ice chunk into smaller ice shards. It sounds a lot easier than it actually was; the ice chunk kept slipping and sliding along the bottom of the bowl, and though I haven’t double checked with Nora, I’m fairly certain I stabbed a hole in that yellow plastic bowl. oh well I suppose; every battle has it’s causalities, and the yellow plastic bowl was a small price to pay for the greatly anticipated deliciousness which we were about to experience.
Once adding the ice shards, Nora successfully blended the smoothies. a baby bit of raw sugar crystals were blended into the smoothies before their completions. I am not ashamed one bit to say that those smoothies Nora and I created made my top two list of greatest smoothies I have ever tasted. The flavors of the strawberries and raspberries really complemented the texture of the crushed ice and raspberry seeds. It was simply delicious.
Nora and Sequoia’s Ridiculous Smoothie Recipe
1 frozen bottle of water (The plastic must be peeled and the ice must be crushed before
immediate usage– feel free to substitute with actual ice cubes.)
3-5 large glops of strawberry yogurt (use the brand of your choice = ) )
wash all fruit before using it!
subtract five raspberries from the carton and add the rest to the smoothie
8 or so strawberries with their green tops cut off
1 small spoonful of sugar (to help the medicine go down…haha lame joke, I know.)
Blend in a smoothie maker until it is of your desired drinking texture. It’s simple and simply delicious = )
After Nora and I made our delicious smoothies, we continued chatting and yelling ridiculous phrases in an effort to wake Cherry from her slumber in case she would want to sample our delicious blend. “Cherry,” Nora would begin in one of her little voices that she does, “Cherry there is a fire! Wake up Wake up!” another common exclamation went something like this, “Cherry, we made smoothies, and you don’t even get a taste even if you want one! Wake up Cherry!” Basically the two of us were the equivalent to annoying five-year-olds; we were both just in one of those hyper moods.
Later the next day, I discovered Cherry hadn’t heard a word of our racket from the night before. She had slept soundly through the whole ordeal. “You know Sequoia, before I went to bed last night I was soooooo hungry!” divulged Cherry. Slightly confused by my response of laughter after that statement, she continued to ask why it was so funny that she was hungry before bed.
“Why didn’t you come in the kitchen and drink any of the smoothie we made?”
“What?”
“Are you serious right now? There is no freaking way you didn’t hear us. Nora and I were so obnoxiously loud and annoying. Nora even started yelling ridiculous things to you in that one voice she does. You have got to be kidding. There is absolutely no way you didn’t hear us.”
“Smoothies?! Dang it! I seriously didn’t hear a thing. I slept right through all of that; I was so incredibly tired Sequoi (No, I didn’t forget the ‘a’ on my name. She calls me that sometimes.) you have no idea.”
“Haha I still can’t believe it, but that makes me feel way less badly about making all of that noise.”
With that, I was able to look back on the Green County weekend trip very satisfied. There is no better way to reconnect with an old friend then by chatting over an icy smoothie — especially if it was a little bit of an adventure to create your drink.
All my love,
Koya = )
Nora Charles — The thin Man
Simply Sequoia: Smoothie Queens
Image : http://www.flickr.com
