Cranberry Juice

I mentioned in my previous BLOG that I hate cranberry juice. I always have. But that's okay.

Growing up we only had it one day a year -- Thanksgiving Day. We had a choice -- we could have one of a choice of three drinks: cranberry juice, tomato juice, or ginger ale. Why my mom chose those three drinks, I have no idea.

I do know that I liked the color of the cranberry juice, and all the adults were drinking that, so I thought it was an "adult" drink, and that drinking with the adults was a fancy, shmancy thing to do. So I opted for cranberry juice (unsweetened was the way it came back then). Oh, my but it was awful. But I didn't learn my lesson, because for four or five years straight I stuck with the cranberry juice.

By that time I was a teenager and being or mimicking adults was no big deal, so I switched to tomato juice -- which wasn't just a Thanksgiving thing. Mom did stock tomato juice in the fridge -- as she did ginger ale. Tomato juice and ginger ale were available year round.

Tomato juice was more available, though, than ginger ale. Ginger ale was "soda" and soda was only something you drank during the week, never on Sunday. And I never got the reason for that either. But tomato juice could be drunk any day of the week, 365/24/7. Get it?

So, that's the cranberry story.

One more thing. My dad HAD to have cranberry sauce with his turkey. I have never appreciated that either. I have made my own cranberry sauce for 42 years -- that is I get raw cranberries, cook them with sugar and orange juice and a few apple slices, then when it's almost jelled, I turn off the heat. After the mixture cools, I add some crushed walnuts. Alan likes it. I can swallow it. Again, it's made with cranberries, and I just don't like them.

ttfn