When I first moved to LA, I found an apartment right off of the Sunset Strip and a job at an upscale-ish pizza place called Cheebo (the phonetic spelling of the Italian word for “food”). It wasn’t too bad of a job – the food was pretty reasonably priced and lunchtime-focused, which meant that tips were only okay, but I liked my coworkers and really liked the staff meal that we got at the end of every shift. The part of it that I hated was when my manager asked me to work the brunch shift, because the brunch shift involved fresh-squeezed orange juice…and you know what’s a major pain to make?
Fresh-squeezed orange juice. If you have never done this, let me tell you: you have no idea how many pieces of fruit it takes to make your teeny, tiny four-dollar glass of Vitamin C.
I think working at Cheebo gave me a bit of juice-making PTSD, because never since have I been enamored of the idea of fresh-squeezing my own anythings…but pregnancy does weird stuff, like make you all of a sudden need fresh lemonade RIGHT NOW.
So I made it.
It’s so good, you guys.
What You Need:
6-8 lemons
1/4 cup sugar
Small handful mint leaves, chopped
1. In a small saucepan, combine sugar and 1/4 cup water. Bring to a low boil and stir until sugar has dissolved. Remove from heat.
2. Squeeze the lemons (you should get about a cup of juice), reserving a few slices for garnish.
3. Fill a pitcher halfway with ice, and add the sugar water, lemon juice, chopped mint, about two cups of water, and sliced lemons. Mix and serve with lemon slices for garnish.
