Must admit~ I am late to the smoothie bowl train.
I’m not a big fan of bananas outside of homemade banana pudding and how they set them on fire for dessert in the east indies. And a banana split. Can totally rock with a Banana Split at all hours of the night, although whoever is devouring it with me usually has to handle half of the banana assigned to my side of the split.
Aside from acai bowls when I lived on Venice Beach for a few months (& even with the acai bowls, the spot next to my place that was my go-to always made mine without banana as a kiss on the forehead), I couldn’t be bothered with the upsell of $5 for someone to pour what they’d made for me in a blender into a bowl instead of a cup.
Quarantine changes everything.
With the pandemic came the decision to go hard on my arsenal of nutraceuticals and the discovery that a smoothie bowl is an ingenious delivery system. I’m fluid- the shift between the recipe for the bowls, the green drinks and traditional smoothies is just the presence or absence of bulk.
When it’s a smoothie bowl, the tweak instead of bananas OR avocados- which I love but it just seems like a waste of avocado to hide it in a smoothie-
… is frozen fruit and vegetables.
I don’t use ice because that waters down everything. My baseline is Pineapple. The Bromelain in pineapple is wonderful for your digestive system. I will do berries. But a great hack is frozen vegetables.
When I’m someplace where I can root down for at least a month with all this On the road again flow, I’ll make sure to grab an extra bag of power greens to stash in the freezer. those splinter up as good as ice in a smoothie. I also will cut up peeled limes to toss in when it’s go time.
But my best trick has to do with cilantro.
I have been singing the praises of cilantro a lot lately because it is a stealth powerhouse for getting your system in order.
But something that I do on top of putting cilantro in my salads as a foil to arugula is I chop up the stems and freeze them so they too can be added to smoothies. Waste not, want not.
These days I’m also adding more greens in powder form. Wheatgrass, Barley, Alfalfa, Chlorella and MORE cilantro.
My recipe is simple.
Baseline of Aloe [gel & juice] and liquid chlorophyll that whatever other supplements I’m called to get dumped into the blender, then topped off with unfiltered apple juice and ginger juice. I’m also using more hemp powder & probiotic powder as of late. I set that up the night before and in the daze of DayUPs pull it out the fridge, sleepily toss in the frozen fruit and veggies and away we go.
If It’s going to be a smoothie and not a bowl, I put all the frozen things into the mix the night before so it’s more liquidy. If It’s straight juice, the recipe stops at the ginger and apple juice.
…But one thing that’s weirdly made a big difference for me was investing in a sustainable smoothie bowl.
I kept seeing these coconut bowls everywhere.
I finally got curious and looked into what the primary company producing them was about and got really inspired. Especially since via Globalboho I’ve spent years loading into enclaves for projects, seasonal gigs, residencies and retreats bringing my own goods and gear [hence the teeny Italian percolator and margarita blender] and have had a special dish in tow with me as a way to root down into me wherever I tend to be, and many of the people I’d seen rocking these Coconut Bowls are like keeping them in their satchels and having spots use them instead of takeout containers that will just be trashed. Which is a very Venice vibe to me. I dug it.
So in celebration of effectively relaunching all four of the Grievechronic books as the lead-in to Exist, book five of grievechronic [that is now available all over the world as of10/10/2020] …I rewarded myself with a Gratitude set designed by this Aussie yogi Sjana.
It got here the DAY everything for Exist was finally locked and loaded, ready to go live…which was just very auspicious in a laidback way.
And it spins like the top from Inception lol and is so lightweight! I didn’t realize I was thinking of a coconut in all it’s meaty, juiced up, watery glory weight-wise before it was in my hands. It is pretty much light as air.
The other cool things about the set are you get to the bottom of your mindful meal and are posed with a question, and it came with equally lightweight cutlery also emblazoned with mindful head-pops keyed to gratitude and a bamboo boba straw.
& I’d been hmming a metallic boba straw at the Row all February but the dimensions were too off to get it.
They’re the perfect foil to the copper travelling cutlery a dear friend gifted me this spring out of nowhere that match my gloriously old- school copper water bottle from India that purifies the water the way they have for eons there. Ancient this is sci fi stuff.
I truly sheepishly look forward to making these bowls a few times week now. I haven’t been bitten by the artisanal bug yet. I’m in full-on globalboho immunity arsenal mode. Only god knows how ugly but good or pretty it’s going to turn out on the days I make but there are a few repeat contenders that were already in play before the gratitude bowl arrived.
A few Globalboho Gambatte Geterdone Standards:
The HULK: When the world is trying it early in the morn I amp up the magnesium chloride in the bowl;
&
The SWAMP THING: When the hemp and berries overtake the color palette and it looks like sludge but it is truly really good and good for you.
AB
This is not a masterclass on smoothie bowls.
I’m not there, but check out Minimalist Baker – they can give you the goods you need if you are less of the
let’s just splice this mofo and go!
Let’s see what happens next~
Weird Science/
#Globalbohoexperiments
kind of person and more of a “There MUST BE ORDER!!” type of gal or guy.
As for the Coconut Bowls, if they’ve geeked you on sight like they grabbed me, you can grab some of them to test out yourself here: https://bit.ly/2GUCCDD Pretty sure they ship anywhere in the world. Coupon code 13FAE07C should take a lil off of whatever you get, too.
“That wraps this episode of- “
“WAIT! Why is it called the “Gambatte Geterdone” smoothie bowl? What kinda name is-“
“Ah yes! the origin story,” the pseudo Old timer murmurs, stroking an imaginary beard full of wisdom.
(couldn’t resist~)
Gambatte is one of the first words I picked up from Japanese friends.
They meant it like “Work hard! Yeah!” but to me it always rang out sonically similar to “Merika, Fuck Yeah” type vibes whenever they gruffly growled it. And in my weird lexicon Merika, Fuck yeah is in the same spiritual family as the hallowed huskily whispered “Geterdone.”
And because there’s no space for any aspect of me to be fussing about this particular self care hack, however far it seems at first from giving the innerkid the corn dog when the innerkid asks for a f ureaking corn dog( because of how nutraceutical-ish and supplemental-ish it gets)… I set my spirit GAMBATTE, and GETERDONE.
It could also use “GETERIN~” but that misses the whole “let’s get this thing done so we can go do whatever the heck else we have to do to take care of ourselves in a f ureaking pandemic.
…See you next week or so.