Strawberry Lemonade and a Story: How the Crazy Boss Ranting About Gold and the Dollar Helped Steer Me to Anarchy

lily-da-vine (73)in #food • 6 years ago

This post is more story than recipe, although it does include a simple recipe at the bottom for the drink shown. It was thought of while I was drinking this drink, a rendition of something I used to make at an old job...

Before the last 7 years of my crazy life I worked a series of jobs just like any other low income American kid. I can't say I enjoyed all of them but the one I did love was the ice cream shop job, and it wasn't just the 16 free ounces of soft serve I got to take home every day.

At the time I got that job I'd just been let go from my Subway job but had only a few weeks left of what was my last summer before college. I wanted more money and something to do with my free time so I got a job at a very local ice cream store I was really fond of. It'd changed hands many times in my life but the one owner that managed to stick around in my life is the one I ended up working for, we'll call him D.

I'll admit when I first met D I thought he was a pompous asshole. He was arrogant about his products but there was reason as it was better than ever. He challenged me one day when he saw me taking lactose pills saying his ice cream wouldn't make me sick due to where he sourced it and he was right, it was literally the only ice cream I could eat without a supplement.

So when I got that job I was interested to see what I was in for. What I didn't expect was for it to be my favorite job ever because of that crazy man and his crazy views on things like the dollar. I only had a few weeks at that job and we both knew it, but they were some of the best work weeks of my life as far as jobs are concerned. He must have enjoyed me working there too because when I visited him the next summer he begged me to move home and start working again.

You see D is an expat most of the year, in China looking for a wife by his own stated personal goals. His stories of meeting Chinese families when dating girls were nothing short of hilarious. The young girls he had working his counter at the shop went to the school I did but were much younger and had foolish theories he wanted to try to date them because he hired nothing but young women but I knew better, they were not nearly chinese enough for him and when I told him that he laughed and said it was true. He was a smart business man who knew that having slutty dressed high school girls working his counter would bring all the boys to the yard. And it did.

He had an eye for quality and the reason he sought out the high quality cream he did was because he too was lactose intolerant. He wanted something real but not something that'd make him feel sick and he found it. His prices were higher for the place than anyone had ever dared but no one complained once they tried it. Many of the toppings were home made and everything on the food menu was awesome. He had an awesome operation and I was the only one that got that.

The other girls dismissed him because he was crazy. Always chattering on about ridiculous things like the collapse of the dollar and the value of gold. It was one of those things where he was talking about stuff I knew was important but I had so little actual knowledge of myself.

When I went to college and started to look into things like free market capitalism and anarchy I was constantly reminded of the things that I remembered him talking about. He even had a conversation with me before I left for college telling me that college wouldn't make me successful and that I should consider moving out of the country and buying gold.

Turns out he was the smartest person in my life at that time and had given me the best advice in the world. He was the only one willing to truly admit that things were not okay with everything from the local things to the international. He managed to set himself apart business wise in the states enough to make a good living during the summer months from my memory and that always stuck with me. His eventual goal was to move back permanently, I'm not sure if he ever did but I hope so.

So when I drink a strawberry lemonade I'll always think of him explaining the things it took to make it perfect. A home made strawberry syrup sauce from fresh berries, fresh squeezed lemon juice, ice cold water and sugar.

D, if you're out there and reading this, you got through! Thanks for rambling on about the truth despite everyone telling you that you were crazy!

For anyone wondering I used one lemon and a few teaspoons of plain cane sugar for this and likely a tablespoon of a simple strawberry sauce. I make that just by boiling strawberries on low until there's just some chunks and a sauce left. I had some leftover from breakfast having served it on crepes one morning and made some of this later that afternoon.