orange juice

I have started to drink orange juice every morning. It is expensive.

Juice Appeal on the miniblock in the middle of Shattuck, at Center
I’ve gotten orange juice here twice. The guy that I assume is the owner is kind of ferrety-hippy, which is what you expect out of berkeley. Both times he scoffed at me when I ordered a large. The first time, he muttered something about it taking so many oranges, and then I felt bad for making him do all that work, and then felt stupid for feeling bad because I was a paying customer and that’s what happens when you pay people to do something for you (they do something for you). I said “I’m sorry” and he immediately said “oh no, it’s just that, this machine here, you see people have to get used to it when they use it the first time, because you put the orange half on it like this (puts the orange half in place) and press down, and since it’s spinning, you have to put pressure on the orange in all the right places or it’ll spin it out of control.” The second time, I ordered a large again, and he showed me a large and a small and I said “yes, the large one” and he said “which size would you like” and I said “the large one” again and then he kind of grunted. Then when he was actually making the orange juice, he interrupted his private reverie and called “did I already ask you if you could finish a whole large? and you said yes?” and I nodded. When he came out from around that corner, I asked him why he was so incredulous about me eating a large. He said “Oh, it’s just funny that a girl could drink all that orange juice.” WTF? You work at a juice shop. I would think that more girls drink tons of juice because they think it’s like a substitute for a meal or something. Isn’t juice healthy? Shouldn’t we all be drinking more of it? Aren’t you SELLING it? Shoudln’t you be happy that I’m buying more of it? WTF mate? Anyway he probably saw the look on my face and then tried to deflect what he just said by telling me a story about how once there was a guy who was as big as this tree who parked his truck which was as big as Bank of America across the street and came in and said “I want a large orange juice” and sat down and drank the entire orange juice in one draft and then ordered another one. I told him “yes, this juice is amazing.” He concurred. The orange juice is so delicious because it is really sweet. I like sweet things. Also, I like pulp, and it has just the right amounts of it.

People’s Cafe on Shattuck at University, around the corner from the store
I love this place. It has cheap sandwiches. But the orange juice was meh. Not that tasty, pulp was too stringy or something. Still, I go to it all the time for other stuff. I just discovered the 2nd back room; I didn’t know it was bigger than what is visible from the street. But this post is about orange juice.

Jamba Juice on the west side of Shattuck, south of the BART station
Their orange juicer a big machine that reminds me of the ball sculpture in front of the san jose tech museum, which I love. You stick oranges in a hole on the top right and the orange falls into a chute made of wires, and then a vertical tread-shelf lifts up oranges one at a time and deposits them into an opening and closing contraption that sort of looks like those frisbee golf things (mass of metal and interlocking teeth) (ok frisbee golf things don’t have interlocking teeth but you know what I mean) and it somehow extracts a bunch of juice. I was staring at it trying to see out what it did to the peel. I couldn’t figure it out. It must just punch through the skin and like squeeze it and sluice the peel away or something. The guy had a little trouble with the machine but I only know this because he apologized for it taking so long; I hadn’t noticed that the spout had fallen off for a while and he had to screw it back in. The juice was really tasty and delicious and just the right texture and everything. Maybe a little more sour than I like. But I still like Juice Appeal more because it’s independent and I live in berkeley.

Organic Juice or something on that street one north of Center, between Milvia and University
This is a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny hole in the wall place that serves tiny sandwiches, soup, and organic drink stuff. It is literally a hole in the wall. You walk up to the hole in the wall and you order stuff, and the person inside turns their torso a bit and gets it for you. The first time I patronized it, I got a tomato soup (it was very smooth and creamy and orange and delicious) and a tiny sandwich. The combo is $6. The tiny sandwiches are in a circle on a plate on the counter and you pick one. It is like 3x3x3 and made of tofu and some tomato and lettuce and sprouts and stuff and it is so tasty and also the cutest sandwich you have ever seen in your life. The soup was so delicious that I didn’t put it down on the floor when I went to the ATM so I spilled it all over myself and the wall under the ATM. I was embarrassed. I tried to wipe myself off with a napkin, but when I was bent over, the wind blew my hair into the soup and then I had orange soup drying to a crust in my hair. I happened to bring an extra pair of pants in my backpack that day, though, since I’d started doing that ever since that one time I went to sleep for 4 hours some Friday because I had walked to work in the rain that morning and my jeans were soaked up to the thighs (because rain + wind means you get wet even under an umbrella) and I got so cold by the afternoon that my body was like “ok I give up, I’m shutting down, see you later.” So anyway I went into the bank and told them that I had spilled soup all over and if they could please clean it up because I was ill-equipped to do so and that I was just letting them know and I was really embarrassed. This happened like 3 weeks ago and you can still see dried soup on the ATM. There’s a piece that’s congealed and yesterday when I walked by it, it waved at me while flapping in the wind. I guess this is just what happens when something is messy on the street: nobody takes care of it. Anyway this post is about orange juice. I got orange juice here one morning. Their machine is amazing. The lady in the closet-hole-in-the-wall threw some orange halves (they were already peeled) into this machine and this extremely smooth light frothy drink came out. I was like “your machine is amazing!” but when I drank it I found I didn’t like it that much. It was too processed, I guess. It wasn’t watery like juice normally is, and there was no pulp because the machine beat it too much.

The Verdict: Juice Appeal wins, slightly weird owner who I can’t tell is easy or hard to get along with notwithstanding.

At this juncture I would like to announce that I have pooed every day for a week (once twice in a day!!) and none of them were horrible experiences. WillC says “whatever, orange juice doesn’t do anything. You should eat metamucil” but I am proving him WRONG.

There is still a lot to say.