by Jay Moonah

One of my favorite pieces of advice about living like a rock star is attributed to Canadian blues-rocker David Wilcox. The story as I have heard it is that when Wilcox was asked to what he credited his great health despite his legendary hard-living road-warrior lifestyle, he famously replied "fresh fruit." Hmmm, well if it's good enough to keep the High Sheriff of Hell alive, it's good enough for me!

Trouble is, it's sometimes hard to find fruit if you're out and about in the day and evening, even if you're eating at reasonable establishments, let alone the local Burger Barn. So my strategy is to load up on fruit in the morning, and there's no better way to do that than a nice tall fruit smoothie. Yum! Now as a good suburban kid I'm used to paying a premium for mall-made fruit drinks, but you can avoid rendering too much onto Ceasar by making your own smoothies at home.

First thing you'll need is a blender. You can get decent one for 30 or 40 bucks, just don't abuse it by trying to blend too much at a time or you'll burn out the motor. Just trust me on this, I've got a small blender graveyard in my basement to prove it. Once you've got your blender working, first thing to do is crush the ice. I recommend 3 ice cubes per drink. Put these in and run your blender in ice crusher mode until they are basically ice dust. Next thing I recommend is melon. Any type will do, but I find something fairly neutral like honeydew is the best if you're adding other flavors. I use about a quarter melon per drink. Cut it up into chunks, and put in a small handful at a time and run on "liquidize" or "pulverize" or whatever the next-to-highest setting on your blender is called. If the blades are just spinning, gently push the fruit down onto the blades with a spoon or spatula. Don't jam it down, remember my basement of burned out blenders!

Once you've got the melon in liquid form it's time to add some other fruit for flavor. My favorite is blueberry. You can get a good-sized tube of frozen blueberries from your local Colossal-Mart for around 4 bucks, and this will last you for a while 'cus you really only need about a dozen berries to make your smoothie wonderfully purplely. Plus blue berries have those great anti-oxidants. Yes you're right, so do red wine and dark beer, but I don't usually recommend those for breakfast. Usually...

Anyway, my last step is to add a banana. You'd pay a buck to get the food court smoothie girl to do this, but a banana probably costs half that if you get it at the grocer or market. Break it in a couple of pieces, and blend the lot. Don't like bananas? A spoonful of yogurt will add a similar creaminess.

Don't like ANY of the fruit flavors I've listed? Try your own! It's pretty hard to mess up so don't be afraid to experiment.

Bon appetite!