The Art of Smoothie Making

“We need someone to make smoothies,” the manager said.
I envisioned myself more as a coffee maker, but I said okay. Okay because I needed the money. Okay because honestly, I had nothing better to do.
That next week, I became an employee at Christ Church Café (or CC Café as it’s called)—a church-owned operaton located in the building’s lower level along with the church’s other retail enterprise, the bookstore. Seven-thousand odd members, two-thousand in attendance on any given Sunday, and CC Café caters to their coffee & smoothie needs.
Some come because they need the caffeine before the service. Some come afterwards fired up and ready to push the excitement envelope with a massive dose of caffeine.
Some members should just give in and go intravenous.
I pass no judgment. Given my newly acquired access to almost any specialty drink I could dream up, my resolution to kick the habit is now in the grounds bin.

I was on a job search, having returned from an eight month stint in France only six weeks earlier, where “café” is drunk in cups the size of thimbles for a good reason—it’s really strong. It is most commonly served unmixed, unspoiled by chocolate syrup, flavored shots or any other kind of liquid other than cream. Specialty drinks are an unknown concept, an American institution, and smoothies, even moreso.

Ice cream is ice cream, fruit is fruit, and what is a smoothie anyway?
I was about to find out.

The first time Wayne, the coffee shop manager, showed me how to make a smoothie, I stood there blinking at him.
“Is that all?”
“Yup.”
No overworked employees in the back peeling bananas and slicing strawberries?
“Nope.”
People are more curious about what goes into a smoothie than how it’s made. The special combination of ingredients goes into the blender, there’s a WHRRRR, and out comes a smoothie. The ingredients are important of course, but it’s the WHRRRR that makes the magic happen. It’s the WHRRRR that separates the truly exceptional from the lumpy chunky messes.
As for the secret recipe? Mixes and ice. The coffees consist mostly of sugar, powdered coffee and milk while the fruit smoothies—are you ready for this?—are green tea based liquid mixes.

Either by luck or providence (it is a church, afterall), when Wayne measured out those proportions that day, it was just right. The first time I am shown how something is done, it becomes the standard against which I compare all subsequent repetitions. If Wayne filled that cup to the rim with ice that first time, and I later decided that that was too much, that the smoothies were too chunky and I couldn’t attain the right blend, I could never adjust my paradigm to be “fill it to a little less than the line;” it would always be “fill it less than the first time.”
Perhaps I’m compulsive. Or perhaps I’ve found a quirk in how the human brain operates. I don’t know.

For blended coffees: milk up to the lowest line in the cup, then dumped directly into the blender. Followed by two scoops of powdered mix, one slightly heaping cup of ice. How heaping is important. Changes the consistency. For fruit smoothies, one scoop of ice not heaping, plus the liquid mix poured almost to overflowing.
The correct ratio of mix to ice is almost as important as the blending—almost. A good blend can in part compensate for imperfect proportions, but perfect proportions can never make up for a bad blending. Who hasn’t experienced a clogged straw, or slurped their way down through a ball of ice?

Thankfully, our customers are neither as moody nor demanding as those in the general public—due to the location, I’d like to think. I have yet to be bargained with, scowled at or yelled at for messing up or being too slow on my delivery. The customer knows what she wants, but is a patient creature because I am valued for my ability to satisfy her fix. Since the café is not a large corporate entity, the employee does not have to bend over backward to ensure that the customer is appeased in every way possible, up to and including meeting impossible demands. In a way, I think this improves the customer/clientele relationship. No promises made here. Only drinks.

As fate would have it, I’m quite good at mixing cold coffees and smoothies. The compliments come pouring in. At first it’s encouraging. I may not be able to find a professional career, but I can make a smoothie. Then, what usually happens when one becomes proficient at something, happens. The bar is raised. Now, every smoothie has to be perfectly blended, and it’s become a contest not only to outdo myself, but the other employees as well. Wayne has already told me I’ve had more compliments than any beginning employee, but that’s not good enough. I must maintain or better my record. I just can’t be at my peak three weeks into my smoothie career.

I discover that tiny variations in factors influence the final product. I notice the drinks are a little too runny, and it’s because the blenders have just been washed in hot water. I tell one of my co-workers to do a final rinse in cold water to get a better blend, and by the way she looks at me, I can tell she thinks that next I’ll be suggesting that we count the ice cubes for each drink, and no telling what else.
I wonder what I will say in my defense. I would blame perfectionism, but someone else at the café has already claimed that title (incidentally, the same woman who substitutes four pumps of caramel for two caramels and a macadamia nut to make a turtle coffee. “All they care about is the caramel flavor and the chocolate on top anyway,” and I know she’s right, but I could never bring myself to make such a compromise simply on principle. ) No, it has to be something else.
There’s only one other designation that could possibly justify my level of exactitude in making these drinks. Artist.

MoonKatCreations Launches Creative Non-Fiction Blog

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Anyway, well, I'm here now. This promises to be the first of many postings. I promise better content on successive ones.

I'm all about the art of writing, and the idea that everyone has something important to say. The trick is to produce something that is both well crafted and expressive. I hope that I succeed in this and that someone will enjoy reading my postings as much as I will enjoy writing them.