jmgoyder

I am a lover of green juice – a devotee, a fan, an advocate! The idea of green juice is what wakes me up in the morning, what keeps me going during the day and what EXHAUSTS me in the afternoon/early evening. Why the latter? Because I make it myself.

Let me explain the process in detail. I’ll even include a timeline.

3pm: Go out to your luscious vegetable garden and try to ignore the 35 degree heat.

3.05pm: Go back to the house to get a hat, a sweat band, and a container into which you can place your freshly harvested greens, and try to ignore the flies in your nostrils, the ants between your toes, and the possibility of a snake in your vegetable forest.

3.10pm: Once you have found your garden scissors (this may take awhile, so try to remember to remind yourself to always put them in the same place so that you don’t have to dig the entire garden up looking for them), begin to harvest your amazing produce.

3.30pm: Try not be too alarmed by the fact that all of your spinach and all of your celery plants have somehow become trees. This is because you haven’t been out to the garden for some time, but don’t feel guilty; after all, it’s hot, dirty and insecty out there. Just cut a few branches off the spinach and celery trees.

4.15pm: Take your container of beautiful green vegetables to the wash house and plunge them into a sink of cold water. If they won’t all fit, take some of the smaller greens into the kitchen and do the same. Have a little rest.

4.30pm: Cut up some apples and carrots and a bit of ginger. Put these into a big bowl with the washed greens from the kitchen sink. Make sure your wonderful cold press juicer is responding to electricity and BEGIN juicing!

5pm: Don’t be upset if you forgot to change out of your white shirt; green is a lovely colour!

5.05pm: Pour the results of this exciting process into the bottles you have waiting-and-ready for the wonderfulness of this green juice and put them straight into the refrigerator. Try not to think about the recent theory that if you don’t drink freshly pressed juice immediately, it won’t ‘work’. Allow yourself a few sips of the elixir and feel the surge of energy this provides you with. You will need this energy because now you have to clean the juicer.

6pm: Now that you have washed and rinsed the many parts of the amazing juicer you bought online, have a little rest again. You may indulge in a little green juice (delicious!)

6.30pm: If you are struggling to reassemble the juicer for tomorrow, you may open a bottle of wine. A single glass of this kind of juice can help immensely as you perform this semi-final task. Try not to panic if the top bit doesn’t quite screw into the middle bit of the bottom bit of the juicer. Instead, use this experience as a kind of meditation. If moments become minutes and minutes become, well, hours, you can either call on someone to help you, or just do that whole breathing thing until the juicer is ready for use again. Do NOT swear at the various parts of the juicer that won’t cooperate immediately; do NOT send an angry email to the manufacturers (because they did their very best and, after all, this is a very superior juicer); and, above all, do not give up on loving the green juice!

7pm: The last stage of this green juice adventure is the most challenging; force your son and husband to drink it. If your son says that there is a bit of grit in it, just smile calmly; if your husband spits it out, try not to be offended. You did your best.

And all of that leftover green juice is yours!