When the end result is only half the benefit….

Its been a busy kind of day, in a really nice way. More about that later! This is about sitting down with a drink at the end of the day; fire lit, rain bucketing down outside, dinner cooking.

I was really thirsty and felt like something refreshing, in the most natural sense of the word. I don’t drink sweet fizz; I don’t like it and I don’t see the point of it. Of course, there’s limoncello and other home made alcoholic concoctions and I do love good gin and a dash of tonic plus a squeeze of fresh lime juice but somehow that was not what I craved today.

Just before dark I nipped out to my tray of wheat grass in my little green house…. oh no…. its all yellow and finished really but next to it, self-sown and growing madly is the most amazing crop of miners’ lettuce. Sure, I have been eating it in salads for months, but I was looking for something to drink. Hey, I can juice that, I thought, plus some of the parsley growing next to it. So I cut a good handful of each…. and a few fennel stalks and fronds on my way back to the kitchen, too.

Back inside I looked in the fridge and took out some purple carrots from Terry’s then grabbed 2 oranges from the fruit bowl as well, before heading to the hand juicer I mentioned in the last post….. the silent juicer…. and my gorgeous, old green glass orange juicer…. also silent.

I love the soft, crushing sound of the fennel as the auger grabs the stalks, then the smell rises and already I am smiling! Next, in goes in the miners’ lettuce and then 2 carrots. I am always amazed how easily the auger grabs the carrot as I slowly turn the handle, without having to cut it up at all.

Once this is all poured into the glass, I squeeze enough orange juice to fill it up then take a sip….. ahhhhh…. that hits the spot straight away. It tastes wonderful (or I wouldn’t bother with it!).

Picking the greens, choosing the fruit and making this drink with my lovely hand tools had the effect of taking my focus from the busyness of the day to the detail and pleasure of a very small act. This is all part of doing things from scratch; the end result is only half the benefit.