This smoothie bowl came together spur of the moment. I had a bunch of raspberries and frozen mango that I needed to use up, so I was going to make a mango smoothie bowl with raspberries on top. Then, at the last minute, I decided to add a sprinkle of cardamom. I’m so happy that I did.
The cardamom changed the bowl from a more boring fruit smoothie to a mango lassi in smoothie form. It’s thick, rich, delicious, and it has a little spice. I also added granola and chia seeds for crunch and kiwi slices and mulberries for flavor. Blueberries would also work well on top.
In other news, I recently signed up for Poem-A-Day from the Academy of American Poets and I’m obsessed. I like getting a new poem delivered to my inbox everyday. This is one of my favorites from last week:
“Summer Silence”
by E. E. Cummings
Eruptive lightnings flutter to and fro
Above the heights of immemorial hills;
Thirst-stricken air, dumb-throated, in its woe
Limply down-sagging, its limp body spills
Upon the earth. A panting silence fills
The empty vault of Night with shimmering bars
Of sullen silver, where the lake distils
Its misered bounty.—Hark! No whisper mars
The utter silence of the untranslated stars.
In semi-related news, I was reading an article in the New York Times the other day about Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize lecture. In the lecture, Dylan said that songs aren’t like literature because they’re meant to be sung, not read. I’d agree with that assessment.
But, like Dylan mentioned in his lecture, songs and literature overlap because they both tell stories. The best songs and books make me laugh, cry, gasp, and think. They evoke real emotions through themes that we’re all at least somewhat familiar with, such as love, loss, struggle, and triumph.
I thought about Dylan’s lecture when this song came on in the car on my drive to work this morning. I didn’t discover Loretta Lynn until about a year ago. Better late than never, I guess. I love her irreverence, her lyrics, and her no-bullshit attitude.
This song, “Fist City,” encapsulates all those things. Lynn wrote it about her cheating husband. It’s basically a warning to the women cheating with her husband to step off, because otherwise, Lynn will mess them up. It features the lyric, “You better move your feet if you don’t wanna eat a meal that’s called Fist City.” The song was one of a few that got Lynn banned from the radio during the 1960s.
Lynn was a storyteller and a renegade. She wasn’t afraid to take a stand and speak up for what she believed in, even though she knew that it would probably get her in trouble.
I think that artists nowadays are original and take risks. But I miss the rawness and honesty of performers in Lynn’s era. It’s vulnerability paired with a fighting spirit, an unwillingness to back down. I’d like to see more of that in today’s music.
Mango Cardamom Smoothie Bowl (from me, to you)
Ingredients
1/2 cup frozen mango
1 cup unsweetened almond milk
1/2 cup nonfat Greek yogurt
1/4 tsp cardamom
raspberries, chia seeds, granola, mulberries, and kiwi slices for topping
Directions
Blend the mango, almond milk, Greek yogurt, and cardamom in a blender on high until smooth. Pour into a bowl and top with raspberries, chia seeds, granola, mulberries, and kiwi slices. Enjoy!
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