Juiced

Owen’s mom recently purchased a gently used juicer at an auction. I know what you’re thinking…used? But, apparently, all her co-workers decided to all take in the stuff they didn’t want any more and put it in a silent auction at the office, the proceeds of which were to buy new Christmas items for the office for next year. She bought the juicer because it was like $4 and she thought that it might be really nice for the baby to have fresh, delicious, nutrient-filled and preservative-free juice. Owen and I were kind of intrigued. It’s the kind of thing we’d never buy for ourselves but that we’re more than happy to play with. The term “play” is important because it didn’t come with an instruction book.

This morning, because I am home sick for day #3, Owen decided to make me some fresh juice. We’d bought some juicing oranges at the grocery last night, and some frozen cherries and strawberries to try out with it too. Owen took a moment to look up the recipe online (during which I held back and kept silent a moment of joyful ridicule…apparently there’s more to it than “squeeze the juice”) and then took to cutting up oranges and popping them into the juicer. For mine, he also put in a few strawberries.

The strawberries came out all foamy and thick, but this didn’t bother me as I thought it gave them a bit of a smoothie effect. I scooped some up with my finger and it was delicious. The oranges also came out a little foamy. This, we assumed, was because the juicer “juices” them at such a high rate of speed that they just get themselves whipped into a froth of delicious excitement. He poured the contents of the two small glasses we’d been using into a large glass and stirred them into a lovely pinkish-orange foamy concoction, all thick and juicy. Truly, it looked fantastic. I took a sip…and nearly gagged. Actually, I did gag. I nearly threw up. It was AWFUL. BAD BAD BAD.

Because it is human nature to want to taste gross things (“Oh my God…this is disgusting…here, taste it”) and also, I think, because I am sick and my senses of taste and smell are out of whack, Owen tried it too. He promptly gagged on it as well and, without a moment’s hesitation, poured the whole thing down the disposal.

It turns out that in all that recipe reading (which now occurs to me may have actually been a very worthwhile use of time), he somehow missed the part that says, “First you have to take the skin off the oranges.” By the time we’d come to that conclusion, though, the morning juice-making allotment of time was well used up and we had to move on to making breakfast and getting ready for work. Owen made his lunch and I was left to clean the quite literally powdered orange rind out of the juicer.

Here’s a crafty little sidebar: when combined with water, orange rind dust makes a pleasant-smelling clump of clay-type substance. I (and you too!) may want to experiment with it as an artistic medium in the future.

We are not defeated, though! We have vowed to try making juice again just as soon as a.) the juicer and all remnants of the putrescence we tried to call juice has been thoroughly cleaned out and sterilized by the dishwasher, b.) we have time to try again and c.) we forget how truly awful that first batch was. After all, we’re part of the e-generation. We ought to be able to figure out a friggin’ juicer… recipe or not.