Listen as we take a dive down memory lane to find the Blenderman and try to avoid death by smoothie. This is a Tale of Blades and Bananas as we encounter industrialists, barons, and soda jerks while attempting brazenly erotic wand techniques. Thanks to all our LILYs out there!
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Molly 0:00
Hi I'm Matt. And I'm Molly.
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:06
This is spilled milk, the show where we cook something delicious. Eat it all and you can't have any.
Molly 0:10
Today we are talking about smoothies, smoothies. I feel like this episode is approximately 40 years late.
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:21
Ah, I was I was thinking more like third and no little more than 30.
Molly 0:28
Well, maybe, okay, well, we'll get okay. We'll
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:30
get into okay.
Molly 0:32
This episode was suggested by listener Robin.
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:34
Thank you listener Robin.
Molly 0:35
Thank you listener Robin. Indeed. Well, I just want to dive right down memory lane. Let's
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:40
dive down memory lane Camry Lane has become a snorkeling. Attraction.
Molly 0:46
So you know, of course, I remember having smoothies at home. I remember. My dad maybe introduced me to them. I felt like he was the blender man. In blender. Yeah. I mean, he he made all the milkshakes in the house. Sure. Don't even start with the yard or, you know, bring in things to the yard. Oh,
Matthew Amster-Burton 1:09
I think you're gonna Don't even start on how like, I feel like in one of our first episodes, we talked a great length about how upset you are when you hear the milkshake blender. Hit the edge of the metal cup. Oh, God hate
Molly 1:21
that. Yeah. Anyway, okay. Anyway, we had like an awaring blender with a glass jar. Yeah. And, and it had all these different buttons like chop and stuff like
Matthew Amster-Burton 1:34
that when you would press one. The other one would pop back
Molly 1:37
up. And all the buttons seem to do the exact same thing. Yeah.
Matthew Amster-Burton 1:43
What was number did you have like number 10? Liquify. Yeah. Oh my god. I remember like wanting to press that button and my mum maybe like now we don't need to go that far.
Molly 1:53
Okay, well, I remember making smoothies and I seem to remember that our smoothies at home were never as cold as I wanted them to. Okay. But okay, so fast forward, but I really liked smoothies. Yeah, what's not to like? And I do remember being old enough. So there was a certain point. So my mom had a twin sister who lived in the Bay Area. And I remember it being a really exciting thing. When my cousin and I were allowed to go into San Francisco by ourselves. Oh, yes. From my aunt's house, we would take a ferry that would drop us off like near the Embarcadero. Wow. And then we would take a bus. And I remember it was a real adventure. And on one of our first outings in the city by ourselves, I remember my aunt told us about this health food store Sure. We must have been maybe somewhere between eighth grade and 11th grade or something. Yeah, we took the three Jackson I remember this bus we took to get to whatever street it was that where this health food store was and I remember my aunt told us about it because she always thought of this as the place where you went to get smoothies Yeah, of course. And you walk in and I mean, this place has definitely been around since the 70s By this point is probably mid to late 90s Yeah, this place had been around for ages and all the like the air in there smelled like it had been around. Oh yeah, definitely. The health food store smell Yeah, yeah. And I remember there was a counter at the back where you could go order things. We ordered a smoothie and it was disgusting. And I just did like never before occurred to me that a smoothie could be made
Matthew Amster-Burton 3:47
gross like is it was it disgusting because like it was made poorly or because it had like add ins that you did
Molly 3:53
it had add ins that I didn't want and I mean we ordered what seemed reasonable to us but that was it just had a lot of other stuff in it and it was gross. Yeah and I think that was my first understanding of the fact that like smoothie meant many things to many people
Matthew Amster-Burton 4:10
right so I'm realizing now as I think about this that like as I was like adding stuff to the agenda last night and thinking about my smoothie, my smoothie life like that I was only thinking about homemade smoothies and like smoothie counter smoothies and not thinking about like refrigerated grocery case smoothies. We need to talk about that also so my memory lane I think probably starts with World wraps on Broadway. Like I've tried yes he's before the late 90s Yeah, but like mid late 90s there was a there was a chain now defunct chain there might still be like a one location I love world rap I thought it was the coolest totally like it was you know like when when why for the show Lori and I first moved to Seattle or like a year or two later there was this place world wraps on Broadway that was a wrap and smoothie place.
Molly 4:55
Yeah, cuz it like went hand in hand with Jamba Juice. Yeah, it was
Matthew Amster-Burton 4:59
it was definitely like Like, you know, they appeared around the same time. Okay, but Jamba Juice didn't have burritos. Well, but
Molly 5:05
they they weren't related business. No, no. But where one was, you would often find the other.
Matthew Amster-Burton 5:09
Yes. And I was I'd be going to both at the same time, and I do remember Jamba Juice also, but world wraps felt like a little more special because a they had burritos, which were pretty good. And that they were local chain. And I wasn't sure if Jamba Juice was a local chain. Probably not
Molly 5:24
world reps was a local chain. Yeah, based in Seattle. I
Matthew Amster-Burton 5:27
think so. Oh, we're possibly I just like got that impression somehow. And it was wrong.
Molly 5:33
So I first encountered it in California. Oh, okay. So I could be wrong. Anyway. Anyway, it
Matthew Amster-Burton 5:38
was they had good smoothies, like it was, it was all like pretty basic options. I think, like I would always get the one that was the most similar to the smoothies I would make at home, which would be like strawberry orange banana.
Molly 5:48
Yeah, yeah. Well, so I just, you know, our longtime listeners will remember that I once worked at a smoothie place in Oklahoma City. Do you remember the name of my boss? Oh, in Tony, Tony, Tony. So I, you know, back to what I was saying earlier about how the smoothies that we made at home were always delicious, but never quite cold enough. Yeah. Well, so I think that my my brief stint of working at celestial smoothies. Oh, Tony taught you the way of this. Tony taught me the way of the smoothie. And so anyway, celestial smoothies was a smoothie place in a strip shopping center in Oklahoma City like, like, just off Main Avenue.
Matthew Amster-Burton 6:29
Was it related to Celestial Seasonings? No, no, because we've been called celestial smooth innings.
Molly 6:35
Anyway, Tony, it was a one man operation and must have been a real passion project because I can't imagine it made much money for sure. I think that Tony had Vitamix blenders, I now realize he used all frozen fruit, including frozen bananas. So I remember one of my jobs was to take ripe bananas, cut them into I think, halves or thirds, and freeze them and then put them in our freezer. Reach in freezer.
Matthew Amster-Burton 7:06
Okay, I'm glad you mentioned that, because I wasn't actually sure whether frozen bananas were good in smoothies because like I have some bananas here that might not be quite ripe enough to be ideal for smoothies. And I was wondering like, Could I just freeze them? Oh, I don't mean like now since we're planning to make smoothies in like 10 minutes, that probably wouldn't do very much. Yeah, no, no, but I mean, like if I had a time machine, Oh, yeah. At one time, so I would go back to yesterday, and freeze these banana. Well, I don't know why you would freeze an unripe banana. Yeah, that's a good point. I was I guess, like, I thought maybe it would like you know, break the cell structure and soften it.
Molly 7:38
I mean, I don't think it's gonna change the flavor. We just punch them a bunch. Okay. Anyway, hold on. So yeah, one of my jobs there was to peel and prepare bananas for freezing. Because yeah, all the fruit that we used was frozen. And then we would add, I think, I think he had a frozen yogurt machine in there. And there was always some sort of juice. Discovering that you should have all frozen fruit in a smoothie was somehow a real game changer. Definitely. Because it needs to be really cold. I don't want none of those room temperature smooth.
Matthew Amster-Burton 8:15
No. And I'm a person who's very prone to brain freeze. Oh, when you feel like it's gotta be like, so cold. It hurts me. Oh, I don't want it that cold. No, I want to be hurt by smoothie.
Molly 8:27
Okay. Anyway. Oh, and then of course, Matthew. I remember Jamba Juice, too. And I remember when I was looking at colleges, the fact there was a Jamba Juice on campus at Stanford. Okay, it was near whatever the like the Student Union Building was, I don't even remember what it was called. Sure what that thing but anyway, there was a Jamba Juice on campus. What was the I was like a mascot of Stanford, Cardinal
Matthew Amster-Burton 8:55
Cardinal hole, the cardinal
Molly 8:58
is the name. In other words, the deep, deep red hole is called the cloak. Ah, there's also a tree. I mean, it could be the tree. There was also a tree. But here's the thing with the Stanford mascot so the Stanford like, you know that the sports teams are called the Stanford Cardinal.
Matthew Amster-Burton 9:19
Right? Okay, so your college was like my college and they're like we thought we were too cool for a mascot.
Molly 9:24
But then we had like a dancing tree and so I guess tree was the mascot but yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 9:29
so like the tree when a tree and a cardinal love each other very much
Molly 9:33
bigger. There's a whole there's a whole anyway, my my big complaint about Jamba Juice, however was always that they were so quick to throw like sorbet and frozen yogurt in there. Oh, I forgot to say something else. Why? Like why did smoothies go from like smoothies suddenly became like a dessert?
Matthew Amster-Burton 9:55
Sure. And I mean, to be fair, they were already a dessert because like, you know there Mostly sugar. But like that it makes it kind of official when you when you add frozen yogurt, I'm fascinated
Molly 10:06
by the fact that like juice has become such a thing when juice is even more just like straight sugar than smoothies. At least smoothies have like some fiber in there. Yeah, that's true. Anyway, that was my little rant about
Matthew Amster-Burton 10:20
chips. Yeah, no, I went to Jamba Juice. Also, we would go to the Jamba Juice at the whole foods on Roosevelt. Okay,
Molly 10:26
they have one called razzmatazz. I
Matthew Amster-Burton 10:28
think I think I get the razzmatazz sometimes. Yeah, the thing I was gonna say is that they always wanted to throw some kind of protein or nutritional powder in there, Lena, like hold the powder, please.
Molly 10:38
Oh my god. We're going to talk about pancakes. Okay, so we're gonna make a smoothie here in a minute, but just for people who've been living under rocks, let's talk about what a smoothie is.
Matthew Amster-Burton 10:48
Oh, wait, I have one more little bit of memory lane, which is that we would buy and sometimes still do buy Odwalla smoothies? Yeah. Grocery refrigerator case. Pasteurized, refrigerated Smith. Yeah. And the ones we typically add are the sea monster or strawberry sea monster. And let's see monsters like orangey and the strawberry sea monster is that plus pureed strawberry? Yes.
Molly 11:06
My kid loves those. Yeah, I do feel like they taste really different though. From a homemade smoothie. salutely. Yeah, it's it's like a whole different scratches. A totally different niche. Yeah. Okay. So okay. Wikipedia has a smoothie entry, which is where most of today's information comes from. Okay. All right. So obviously, a smoothie is a beverage made by pure hanging fruit in a blender usually has some sort of liquid in it like fruit juice, or a dairy product like milk or yogurt. It's weird. Wikipedia refers to that as a liquid base. But I feel like you only put as much liquid in as you absolutely need to get a blending. I don't want to be I mean, which is true of milkshakes. Also. That's true. Okay. Wikipedia mentions like ice cream as one of the dairy products that sometimes goes into smoothies. It also means it mentions cottage cheese. That is a dairy product that people put in smoothies.
Matthew Amster-Burton 12:01
Okay, so, to be fair, if someone did that, and I didn't know about it, I probably wouldn't notice right? Yeah, unless it was still had like the chunky cotton
Molly 12:11
curds would probably go away. I mean, maybe we're missing out on something really good. I don't think we are okay. Okay. Anyway, but I'm just gonna put this out there. If a smoothie has ice cream in it, I'm gonna call that a milkshake. Okay, that's not a smoothie.
Matthew Amster-Burton 12:24
I'm glad you mentioned that because I remember in the book thoroughly modern milkshakes like one of our all time favorites here at spilled milk, right is the sour cherry milkshake? Well the syrup but also he talks about in the book like why he doesn't have more than like a couple of recipes in there that contain banana because to him as soon as a banana goes into a milkshake, it becomes a smoothie.
Molly 12:43
Oh, no, I think it has to do with ice cream. The presence of ice cream because
Matthew Amster-Burton 12:47
a banana milkshake is definitely a thing. Yeah, yeah. Okay.
Molly 12:51
We got that out of the way. Okay, so sometimes people add other things obviously like non dairy milks crushed ice. Of course honey people like to put in there although I've always like felt like honey plus frozen fruit equals like weird stuff happening in your blender. But blenders are stronger than that.
Matthew Amster-Burton 13:09
Yeah, blenders can stand up for themselves. I mean, the blender I don't know if the if the what was the brand of the ones we had when we had his kids wearing the wearing I don't know if that one that poster.
Molly 13:21
Oh Stark. Yeah, that's right. Okay. Of course peanut butter and then nutritional supplements be Paulin, spirulina. gingko biloba protein powder.
Matthew Amster-Burton 13:32
Yeah, I don't I don't think they even know what's in those powders that they have behind the counter at Jamba Juice.
Molly 13:36
You know, the people working at Jamba Juice. Definitely don't know or care, right. Anyway, so yeah, just to reiterate, we're not talking about juice here which is like fruits or vegetables that are put through a juicer right we are focused here on the blender,
Matthew Amster-Burton 13:50
right so like the fiber stays in the smoothie. Well yeah. Which is why we drink them for the fiber. Exactly. Yeah. So I What was I going to say? I just completely lost my thought. Fiber. I didn't know juices users. Bee Pollen is probably going to make a joke about bee pollen. I don't know.
Molly 14:11
Anyway, I also Matthew and this may be controvert
Matthew Amster-Burton 14:14
concentrate. I like to put orange juice concentrate in a smoothie. Oh, okay. Because that way you get all the flavor but not as much water.
Molly 14:20
Got it? Got it. Okay. I also want to say that in this episode, I don't know I'm kind of I didn't plan to talk a lot about bottled smoothies sold and
Matthew Amster-Burton 14:30
that's fine. You know what I associate that with now? I recently had to get some dental work done. Oh, they gave me a bottle smoothie to drink like, on my way out. Oh, which was which was fine.
Molly 14:41
Okay. Anyway, let's talk about the history of wicked. Yeah.
Matthew Amster-Burton 14:47
Okay, so Jimmy Wales had an idea and like,
Molly 14:50
would be great if we could get all the world together in peace and harmony to to create information
Matthew Amster-Burton 15:00
I'd like to I'd like the world to get together and make the world's largest smoothie. Okay. All right. Okay, you you go into the blender first.
Molly 15:09
Okay. Anyway, so let's talk about the history of smoothies. Yeah. I don't know anything about as you might expect the history of smoothies is in health food stores. Yeah. Okay. Specifically on the West Coast of the US.
Matthew Amster-Burton 15:21
I've just remembering another smoothie memory. There used to be Rainbow Grocery on 15 right near where I live. And there was a smoothie counter there that I bet was a lot like the one at Yes, the your places.
Molly 15:34
Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah. Okay, anyway, so health food stores in the US on the West Coast started selling smoothies in the 1930s. I did not know there were health food stores in the 1930s. I wonder what they were called then. If they were like called health food stores? Yeah, I don't know. And it seems that the reason like what enabled these things to be made is that blenders were invented around that time. Okay, that makes sense. So blenders date back to like the 1930s. And in fact, Mr. That a hand crank Mr. Waring was I think if not the inventor of the electric blender. He was one of the first like industrialists that makes me
Matthew Amster-Burton 16:15
the first parent, one of the first industrialists to make it just in general.
Molly 16:20
I'm looking for one of the first manufacturers the first industrialists, industrialists are like, like
Matthew Amster-Burton 16:28
Morgan and and Dan Lee.
Molly 16:32
Like the robber barons,
Matthew Amster-Burton 16:34
we're gonna talk about land barons in next week's episode. Oh, great.
Molly 16:38
Okay. All right. So yeah, that was the 1930s the term smoothie seems to have entered the scene in the 1980s and this is possibly because of the business Smoothie King
Matthew Amster-Burton 16:51
never heard of it.
Molly 16:52
I've definitely seen it. I feel like in like mall food courts. Make sense. Anyway, Smoothie King was this business founded in Louisiana in 1973 by a guy named Steve Kuhn now, all right, who was a lactose intolerance.
Matthew Amster-Burton 17:06
Jerk. Is that what does what it says on Wikipedia? Okay,
Molly 17:10
now, that's me.
Matthew Amster-Burton 17:11
That's me putting okay good
Molly 17:13
and putting Wikipedia into my own words because I don't plagiarize on like, some people show. No, I'm kidding. I'm getting you're way better than I am at like, paraphrasing, say again. Anyway, okay. So Steve, our man, Steve, is a soda jerk. But he was lactose intolerant. And so he began experimenting with smoothies. That's what we can PTSN so that he could actually drink some of his own concoctions. And he went on to found Smoothie King, which expanded across the US and eventually was bought by a South Korean company in 2012. It's still in existence. And Smoothie King basically pioneered what we know today as like this smoothie business laid the foundation for other brands like Jamba Juice.
Matthew Amster-Burton 17:58
Interesting that I've never heard of this brand. Wow.
Molly 18:03
Well, if you lived in New Orleans, you might be more familiar with this brand because, well, for one thing the brand was founded in but also in 2014 Smoothie King contracted with the New Orleans Pelicans basketball team, all right, to rename their arena Smoothie King Center, okay. And the contract I guess the original contract was for 10 years, so expires in 2024. But Smoothie King has an option to extend it through 2034.
Matthew Amster-Burton 18:32
So our listeners who are who are basketball fans, like this whole time have been like, yeah, obviously we know about smoothie.
Molly 18:39
Yes. Okay. Yeah. And, you know, we Kapiti
Matthew Amster-Burton 18:43
question, do you think you could give a Jamba Juice at Smoothie King said cuz I love me some Jamba Juice.
Molly 18:49
Wikipedia also wants us to know that quote, The healthfulness of a smoothie depends on its ingredients and their proportions. Many smoothies include large or multiple servings of fruits and vegetables, which are recommended in a healthy diet and intended to be a meal replacement. Okay, thanks. So I don't know Matthew, before we get into talking about making smoothies at home, should we make a smoothie? I think we should make a smoothie smoothie at home.
Matthew Amster-Burton 19:13
Okay, I'm gonna vote for my home since we're already here. Okay, great. I
Molly 19:16
brought my blender. Awesome.
Oh, man, I'm really sad that we weren't just recording that.
Matthew Amster-Burton 19:27
Yeah. Remember, we used to record in the kitchen and you couldn't understand anything? Well, so we've
Molly 19:31
made smoothies here. Let's see how it is. Huh? That's pretty good. Right. Very good. So anyway, we used a couple of frozen bananas.
Matthew Amster-Burton 19:39
Yeah, I wish you could have been in there with us because like, the way Molly operates the Vitamix with its what do you what do you call like?
Molly 19:47
It's puncture plunger. Its wand. Yeah, the
Matthew Amster-Burton 19:51
Molly operates the Vitamix wand in a way that is brazenly erotic
Molly 19:58
Matthew got the giggles
Matthew Amster-Burton 20:02
good you were do it you were pounding and you were like looking at me like like dead?
Molly 20:07
Yeah, you know how I do? So we started with frozen bananas and to be honest when I freeze bananas at home I do not do it the way that like Tony used to do it where you peel the banana you cut it into chunks, sure
Matthew Amster-Burton 20:19
freeze up. Just fling the whole thing in there.
Molly 20:23
Yeah, when I when I when I have bananas that are more ripe than we are interested in eating. I just throw the whole banana into the freezer. Me too. And then I defrost it a little bit in the microwave so that it it so that I can like tear the peel and it will kind of like slither out.
Matthew Amster-Burton 20:44
Yeah, we've talked about this many times before about how that's our ultimate scary Halloween costume terrifying. You know how they say like monkeys in the wild eat bananas like from the from the like pointy and like the
Molly 20:58
end June cannot get enough of telling me this
Matthew Amster-Burton 21:01
right. So I think monkeys store their bananas the same way they just they just fling them into the freezer with the with the peels on
Molly 21:07
Yep, so I always put the bananas in first, because the bananas are cold but they're soft. Right? So it's like a good thing to have first against a blade. Then I add my frozen fruits. I add strawberries usually raspberries and blueberries.
Matthew Amster-Burton 21:21
I think a tale of blades and bananas is going to be the the much anticipated final chapter and Game of Thrones book series.
Molly 21:27
Yes. Matthew bought the berry medley because he
Matthew Amster-Burton 21:33
he we had a raspberry problem. Yeah, which was Molly told me we got raspberries and my options for frozen raspberries were a giant five pound bag of local frozen raspberries. It was like $25 or a berry medley that included like three raspberries for $4. So the medley even though I knew Molly would not appreciate oh my
Molly 21:53
god, I hate the medley because it's like, you can't control how much of each individual fruit you get. And because a smoothie needs like a thoughtful proportion
Matthew Amster-Burton 22:04
of it sounds like you're a smoothie control freak.
Molly 22:07
I am I am anyway but yeah, so raspberries, strawberries and blueberries. I usually use like a plain yogurt. In this case I used Strauss Trader Joe's makes a really good like European style plain yogurt, much cheaper than Strauss. And then when I'm at home, I usually wind up adding a little bit of milk because I don't usually have juice at home but I had you get pineapple juice today, which is great. I think I could have used even a little bit more I like it when you can taste the pineapple juice in the smoothie. Have you ever well you don't make smoothies as much as we
Matthew Amster-Burton 22:41
do Asia like reveal my my truth here which is that I don't have a blender and haven't for many years. So it's been a long time since I've made a smoothie
Molly 22:49
but you could make it in with an immersion blender.
Matthew Amster-Burton 22:53
I don't think it would really work. Okay, I think it would just get like although it'd be a frozen foods would just get like gum up the works.
Molly 22:59
Maybe Yeah, God this is pretty much the only thing I use my blender for
Matthew Amster-Burton 23:04
Oh yeah, that was the only thing we use our blender for. That's why we got rid of it when we got bored with
Molly 23:10
Oh, sometimes if the strawberries aren't very good, it can taste really watery. And sometimes if you add too many raspberries it's too too tart sugar then I will add a little bit of maple syrup. Oh, that sounds good. Yeah, it's really good. Oh, I have to say that the only exception so this is pretty much how I always make my smoothies. The only exception to it is I will occasionally make the banana smoothie, which is an actual recipe from the rose bakery cookbook is that the one is London is it like breakfast lunch tea or something like that.
Matthew Amster-Burton 23:42
So it BLT stands for
Molly 23:45
anyway. There's a rose bakery I think in London there's one in Paris but anyway, they make a banana smoothie that is basically banana, lime juice, milk and plain yogurt. That sounds good. I'm not sure actually if there's milk in there it might just be banana lime juice and plain yogurt and it is
Matthew Amster-Burton 24:06
so good. That sounds great. We should have made that today
Molly 24:09
the only thing is is it's quite thin okay because the only fruit in it is really could make that we have all these things I'm content with this but you but you know that's when you could make with an immersion blender
Matthew Amster-Burton 24:22
right doesn't need to like crush a frozen blueberry.
Molly 24:24
So yeah, but Matthew like let's talk about this. Do you feel like I mean, am I deluding myself and thinking this is a reasonably healthy breakfast or snack?
Matthew Amster-Burton 24:33
I don't really have an opinion on that.
Molly 24:35
Let me like well, I know we don't we don't talk about that here because that's a stupid way to think about Yeah, food, but I just I feel like me it doesn't have lead paint in it. It doesn't have lead paint in it. I just I don't understand why we have to put like sorbet and stuff in our smoothies when we can make them taste perfectly good. Yeah, not and not turn them into dessert.
Matthew Amster-Burton 24:57
I mean, I don't want to yuck someone who likes who likes sorbet in their smoothie though? Oh, I do. You do wanna yuck that person now? No, there are listener you'd like to yuck.
Molly 25:10
An acronym for that. Yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 25:13
it's Lily. liftI No, it's li O ye
to all our lilies
Molly 25:28
No, no, it's like, anyway. I really like having smoothies for breakfast. And my kid and I like having them like I don't think
Matthew Amster-Burton 25:38
I don't think you need to defend that. Ah,
Molly 25:41
yeah, I really don't. I think you're right. I think you're right. I do. Great world is so messed up this world. Like, I get so tired of being inside my own heads up. Yeah, no,
Matthew Amster-Burton 25:51
I understand. Like, listeners feel that way.
Molly 25:59
Anyway, okay, well, about that. But okay, but hold on. I want to go further here. So I really don't want vegetables in my smoothie.
Matthew Amster-Burton 26:08
I don't think I do either. Although I've occasionally had one that I like,
Molly 26:12
and I don't want people adding things to the smoothie to make it quote unquote healthier. Yeah, they're totally on board. I don't want that. I don't want protein powder added that makes it chalky. Yeah. Yeah, you can taste that powder. I do not like that. Parsley.
Matthew Amster-Burton 26:28
I do like that. I do and I love the taste of parsley. I mean, you put parsley on on here. Okay, like spinach or kale. I feel that feels kind of kind of like punishment. Yeah, but I mean it's I don't hate it. It just feels like like and I'm giving you this like jolt of of like healthy goodness. And you're gonna taste the health. Parsley like you know parsley. i It's
Molly 26:52
your pleasure. Yeah. Are we are we talking Italian parsley curly parsley?
Matthew Amster-Burton 26:57
I usually get we should we should have we done a parsley episode. I
Molly 27:00
don't know. Do you have any growing on the balcony? We might Oh, I have parsley growing at home. Yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 27:05
I think we do should do a parsley parsley episode because like I always buy the Italian parsley, but I don't know if it's really better.
Molly 27:12
I do the same thing. I feel like maybe it's just a snobby thing. Yeah. I don't want like spirulina whatever that is.
Matthew Amster-Burton 27:19
How about chlorella. This is something I learned about from producer Abby. Let's chlorella. It's another green thing you can put in a smoothie.
Molly 27:28
I just would rather like eat some green stuff later in the day. Yeah, yeah. Yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 27:33
I made a big, big serving of sauteed spinach last night to go with some sausage sandwiches. That was real good.
Molly 27:39
June loves sauteed spinach and I feel like it almost nothing makes me feel like like you're a good parent than watching your kid. Yeah. Then watching my kid just like chow down on a bunch of sauteed. Spinach. Sure. I get that. And when it truthfully has nothing to do with me. No, it's all you know. Great. Okay.
Matthew Amster-Burton 28:00
Peanut butter. You put peanut butter here. I do like peanut butter in a smoothie. I think it's really tasty.
Molly 28:04
I've never put it in there. Yeah, I felt like
Matthew Amster-Burton 28:07
I don't think it goes as well with like a like a berry. Heavy smoothie.
Molly 28:12
But I think some people would say that like scratches a PB and J H
Matthew Amster-Burton 28:16
Yeah, I'm not. I'm not a big PB and J person. Oh, okay. So yeah, so I think you would love it. Really? Yeah, try it.
Molly 28:24
My mom makes smoothies a lot. And she puts spinach in there and peanut butter and protein powder and I think avocado and all of that just feels like oh god, avocado. I don't like I know. I know. But you know what the other thing is? So we've been talking about like, North American, you know, tasty treat kind of smoothies. When in fact, smoothies are many other names in other parts of the world.
Matthew Amster-Burton 28:58
I mainly thought this might be too much smoothie for me to handle.
Molly 29:01
Yes, Matthew,
Matthew Amster-Burton 29:03
who is the Smoothie King now?
Molly 29:05
I mean, for instance. Now look out Steve Kuhn now, Matthew, have you ever had fruit sharbot or sherbet? There are different ways of pronouncing it. I have it but I don't think I've had it. So it is a I think it originated in Iran. But it is typical in sort of similar and related names throughout the Balkans in Turkey and India.
Matthew Amster-Burton 29:32
So let me ask you this. Yeah. Is like a fruit shake. That's that's made of like fruit and ice blended together. Is that a smoothie? I've had that like in in like Thailand and Laos. I
Molly 29:44
was gonna say so. Yes. drinks that are blended up fruit. Yeah, that's a smoothie right? Yeah, I mean, but then if we add ice cream then I think it becomes a milkshake but if it just has crushed ice, I don't know. I do think that's kind of a smoothie.
Matthew Amster-Burton 29:59
Yeah. because wow like when it's like 92 degrees and 100% humidity and you're and you're like sitting by the the Mekong River there's nothing better than
Molly 30:09
apparently in South India they do a similar thing with pineapple like pineapple smoothies that are very like, you know unadulterated just like pineapple and ice Yeah, that sounds really good. And then of course there is loss C's are there are losses mango lassi, maybe other types of Lassie in India.
Matthew Amster-Burton 30:27
What have you took a lime coconut
Molly 30:30
and you mix it all up? A smoothie? Yeah.
Matthew Amster-Burton 30:33
It seems like it should be a Do you think then
Molly 30:35
that like a blended Margarita? No, that doesn't have any actual fruit. Okay, so yeah, there are a whole bunch of drinks that involve like Blended Fruit, sometimes yogurt sometimes honey, I think that yogurt and honey often show up in a fruit Shabbat. Anyway, there are tons of drinks like that around the world. We just don't call them smoothies. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, Matthew, I want to close with a thought, okay, like, why are there not good smoothie places anymore? Like, why are we all like, why is there like so much juice and so little smoothie? Because even Jamba Juice, it's hard to go into Jamba Juice and just get a smoothie that's like fruit and liquid and like yogurt.
Matthew Amster-Burton 31:18
Yeah, just like you just go in there and say just like give me something with like liquid. Yeah. I think because it this is this is a food that like is gonna follow follow fads and trends and like, you know, it's going to try and incorporate whatever the latest trend is. And also he's going to like, I mean, smoothies are kind of out of style. Right? Totally. Now it's all a psych evals it's all a cybils If you ever had an assignable No, but June really likes them. Okay, what what goes into it is like grains or I have only
Molly 31:48
encountered them once. June ordered it and it was like, it almost looked like a like a Blackberry sherbet, sorbet at the bottom of the bowl. And that was presumably the OSI and it was like yeah, it almost looked like sorbet. Like it was really frozen. And then it had some yogurt some honey granola roasted coconut, but I don't really understand what form the OSI is usually in because isn't it sometimes like a smoothie and sometime I don't know Yeah. Oh my god, we should have somebody come tell us about
Matthew Amster-Burton 32:23
expert on the most recent time I think they've gotten a smoothie at a smoothie shop it was at Emerald City smoothie on Broadway and I we had just like been coming back from a trip we're coming back late and I just wanted like some kind of snack like right as soon as possible and a smoothie just sounded good. And it was good like I did have to like you know specify like I want something really basic but it was tasty.
Molly 32:50
I think a smoothie is kind of a perfect after school snack. Yeah, like I will often make a smoothie like this and especially if I'm taking June to like some you know some activity after school I'll make us each a big smoothie put them in like some sort of insulated travel mug situation and we both just contentedly SIP our smoothies in the car yeah like real Americans
Matthew Amster-Burton 33:14
my nephew Jesse who's to drink a smoothie all the time and he'll like carry it in like a like a I think it's a Starbucks cup but but like like a you know reusable cup with a really tight fitting lid that so far a two year old hasn't been able to outsmart amazing but that will change
Molly 33:32
oh so Matthew you're gonna really like oh so when we went to Hawaii for spring break there was in this like shopping center near where we were staying. There was this juice place and the the signage like the way that that the logo worked, it looked like juice lol
Matthew Amster-Burton 33:52
yeah that's a good name for it but
Molly 33:56
it's actually called juice 1010 I
Matthew Amster-Burton 33:58
took juice 101 And
Molly 34:02
anyway, it was actually called juice 101 But I love calling it juice lol and so I made the whole family call it that and we went to juice lol frequently and I will say juice lol despite the fact that it does all sorts of newfangled things like Asahi bowls and whatever will make you just like a regular smoothie. I have to
Matthew Amster-Burton 34:23
assume any smoothie place will make you a regular smoothie if you like you ask for it and you pay for it right I got the stuff
Molly 34:30
but this place actually had like regular like non frozen yogurt that they could put in there like I feel like that is maybe that's just a throwback to like quote unquote health food store. Sure eras. But I do like that because I don't always want like frozen yogurt or sorbet.
Matthew Amster-Burton 34:50
So do you think this this episode is going to bring back classic smoothies? Oh, yeah, because we're a very popular show. Most people listen to us, I
Molly 34:59
think least like they're point 000 1% of the pop maybe not even
Matthew Amster-Burton 35:07
logical exaggerate. But But we got a lot of Willie's is what I'm saying we
Molly 35:12
got a little. We'd like to yuck.
Matthew Amster-Burton 35:16
Yeah. We may not have like the most listeners, but we got the most lilies. Alright, so we move on to segments. I think we smooth I think this was delicious. Thank you for destroying my kitchen.
Molly 35:28
Oh, you're welcome. Okay, Matthew, do you have a now but wow, I do.
Matthew Amster-Burton 35:40
And this was an article in Consumer Reports, or at least consumer reports.com a publication that I did not know how to excellent food writing, but they do.
Molly 35:51
I'm sorry.
Matthew Amster-Burton 35:54
And it's by Perry Sanatana Choate. And it is about the phenomenon of the Asian salad, which I'm putting in quotes. Yeah. And this idea that there is a salad that you see on menus everywhere and see recipes for called the Asian salad that is not really a salad from any particular Asian food tradition. And the article investigates, why is it called the Asian salad? Why is this problematic? And shares recipes recipes for seven really good, actual specific Asian salad? Those recipes look so good. Yeah. And it quotes. It has a recipe and again, quotes a friend of the show pilot, Chung Chandon who are from Hot Thai Kitchen who we've had on a couple of times. And friend of the show, Ken albala. food historian.
Molly 36:39
Hi, everybody.
Matthew Amster-Burton 36:41
We will link to that in the show notes. It's a terrific article.
Molly 36:45
Ah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 36:47
yeah, I forgot brain freeze. Say Yeah, I
Molly 36:49
got brain freeze. All right.
Matthew Amster-Burton 36:51
Our producer is Abby, sir. Catella. Please rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts.
Molly 36:55
And you can also chat with other spilled milk listeners you can talk about about your favorite smoothies.
Matthew Amster-Burton 37:03
Yeah, what do you what do you want to see in there? What do you want to see out of there?
Molly 37:07
And what are you going to do to bring back the smoothies of yesteryear? Yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 37:12
we're, we're on a mission,
Molly 37:14
I guess. And we're wishing and we're wishing someone would would improve our smoothie condition. Wait a minute, I never said ready. Ready to talk with other spilled milk listeners about how we're going to improve our smoothie condition just
Matthew Amster-Burton 37:28
in general. Just on a public forum.
Molly 37:30
Yeah, on reddit.com/are/everything spilled in the agora. I'm Matthew Amster-Burton. And I'm Molly Weisenberger. One was that the Agora
Matthew Amster-Burton 37:40
it's like the Greek public square where you would like debate the issues of the day.
Molly 37:45
Is this related to agoraphobia? And like if you're afraid of being in the public square talking about smoothies Yeah, which
Matthew Amster-Burton 37:51
I kind of am. By by.
Okay, I'm actually drinking tea from my spilled milk mug.
Molly 38:03
Yay.