Mark Hayward Is My Hero

Smoothies are SO yummy. It’s not always easy to find a place that will make you a good one. The whole smoothie industry seems like a bit of a racket to me anyway. The total cost on the ingredients is very low, but the smoothie still costs three or four bucks. The solution? Make your own!

My buddy Adolfo is a smoothie master. He has one almost every day, and he gave me his recipe:

Throw in a peeled mango or a banana

About 1/3 cup OJ

About 1/3 cup Soy milk

2 or 3 ice cubes

Throw in blueberries, strawberries, or whatever

I like to put in some flax meal, maybe a tablespoon or two

Now, blend the heck out of it. Should be yummy.mmmm.

A very good recipe. Now here’s my version of it:

• One peeled banana
• One peeled, seedless tangerine or orange
• A handful of frozen blueberries and/or cherries or mango chunks
• 2 or 3 spoonfuls of vanilla yogurt
• 1/3 cup of whatever juice I have already made in the fridge
• sometimes 1/3 cup of milk
• I think I’m going to add in the flax meal since it’s so good for you, but I just haven’t bought any yet

I am amazed at how delicious it is. AND you get a whole bunch of servings of fruit (a real problem for most Americans) in a very quick and easy form. Works much better in a blender than a food processor by the way. Sometimes it’s hard for me to resist the urge to put other weird stuff in there. I figure that it’s all going to get blended up anyway, so what’s wrong with throwing a few Skittles, a Snickers bar, or some Doritos in too?

Yesterday, Vader (my dog) and I left Indianapolis around noon Eastern time. We stopped briefly at the library to get what turned out to be a boring audiobook. I’m actually still in the middle of listening to Dune by Frank Herbert (and it’s AWESOME!) but it’s on cassette and I wanted to take the good car this time, and it only has a CD player. The plan was to drive up to Milwaukee, stop at Lynn’s house (my mother-in-law), drop off Vader and then head off to the gig at the Milwaukee Zoo. Unfortunately, leaving later than we should have (my fault, not Vader’s), coupled with unusually bad traffic in Chicago (we lost an hour), meant that we had to drive straight to the Zoo, and Vader had to wait in the car for me while I did the gig. For lunch I had packed a sandwich, some blueberries (that I got on Saturday when I performed at one of the Indianapolis Farmer’s Markets), some carrots and two cookies. Good thing too, since there was not time to stop for dinner before the gig.

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I got to spend the weekend in Green Bay WI this week. I was up there for a gig at the International Bay Fest, 3 shows on Saturday and 2 on Sunday. It was a good time. Since I was staying at my friends Jeni and Adolfo’s house I got to bring my dog Vader. I love it when I get to travel with my dog.

Jeni was gone, so Adolfo and I got to have a Man Weekend. We did Man things like make “wraps” (black beans, cilantro, green onions, sour cream, hot sauce, cheese, and green pepper on flour tortillas… and no, they weren’t burritos), eat unbelievably good ice cream sandwiches, walk the dogs, go shopping, drink smoothies (Adolfo is a master smoothie maker), and play video games. You know… man stuff. It was awesome.

Bay Fest went well, with decent crowds, especially Sunday afternoon. I had standing room only, and it was an outside show. I got to eat some delicious sweet corn. I’m still regretting that I only ate one ear. What was I thinking?

The drive home was BRUTAL (8 hours with no help from Vader with the driving), but at least I got to stop in Chicago and see my friends Harper, Hiromi (visiting from Japan!), Matiss and Erica.