When I was away last weekend, I attended the annual Sailfest celebration in New London, CT, only about an hour from where I was staying for the dog show. In fact, if you caught the news last Saturday night, you would have heard about some old man who plowed into a couple of dozen festival attendees with his car at the very same Sailfest. This was just a half hour before I got there, and had I not gotten lost (I wrote down the wrong exit number and overshot my destination), I would no doubt have been one of those unfortunates who was run down. Happily, as it turned out, I was not run over, plus I ended up getting to see the most precious little seaport of Mystic, CT, and I had the most delicious pizza for lunch at Mystic Pizza, made famous by the Julia Roberts/Lili Taylor/Annabeth Gish 80's film of the same name.
I was not expecting the pizza to live up to its hype, but it was truly in my top five pizzas of all time. The dough was tender inside and crispy outside like great bread. I had the house special with sausage, pepperoni, meatball, mushrooms, and onions but without the green peppers that I don't care for. It doesn't sound all that "special," but it was all about the fine quality of the ingredients. Being in a town of Portguese influences, the meats seemed home-cured in that Old World style, and they were not chintzy with the delicious toppings, either! Great stuff. Check it out if you're ever there.But pizza is not even what I wanted to post about, so let's move on, shall we? After my wonderful lunch, I backtracked to New London to check out Sailfest. There were tons of incredible food vendors there. Of course, I was already full from lunch, but the many ethnic chicken kebob-type things were making me hungry all over again! I did not indulge, but I couldn't pass up a free sample of the new smoothies at the Dunkin' Donuts truck. I tried both the wild berry and the mango-passion fruit varieties. And let me tell you, they were SO GOOD! In fact, when I was done at the festival, I stopped at the first Dunkin' Donuts that I passed and bought myself a large wild berry smoothie. I almost fainted when the guy told me what I owed--it was almost five bucks! Good heavens! I am an impoverished teacher, so I cannot afford to develop a commercial smoothie habit. Thus, I have devised my own homemade version that I will now share with you good people. And trust me, this is good stuff...not like the glop that my ridiculous roommate makes and calls a "smoothie." She just mixes nearly an entire tub of yogurt with a mish-mash of (often) uncomplementary fruits in a blender and calls it a smoothie. Where I come from, we call that yogurt with fruit in it. Dumb, very dumb. ;-) Try this instead...
Gina's Citrus Berry Smoothie
1 cup milk (surprisingly, I prefer lowfat milk)
1/2 cup (good-quality) vanilla yogurt
1/2 cup frozen orange juice concentrate
1 cup berries of your choice (I like a blend of raspberry, blackberry and blueberry)
1/4 cup sugar (or Splenda, if you're trying to be good)
about 8 standard ice cubes
Blend until smooth...hence, the name.
Again you are talking about things you don't understand. HOW can someone who doesn't even like fruit promulgate their theory on how one should be made? You make a watery, orangecicle- type thingy. I made a smoothie that will stick to your ribs. Thick and fruity, the way God intended a smoothie (and our friend John) to be!
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