THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, September 18, 1996 TAG: 9609170040
SECTION: FLAVOR PAGE: F1 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Morsels
SOURCE: Ruth Fantasia
LENGTH: 46 lines
THE HOSTESS showed me to a small booth across from the bar.
My body was in Rutherford, Calif., a little town in the heart of Napa Valley, but I felt like I'd left the rest of me in Norfolk. Jet lag.
As I sat there sipping an iced tea, a man bellied up to the bar.
``The usual?'' asked the bartender.
``Sure,'' said the man.
The bartender grabbed a couple oranges from a basket on the counter and started cutting them while chatting amicably with her customer. She pressed the orange halves in a juicer, extracting all the liquid.
Fresh juice in drinks. Now there's an idea, I thought. Then I thought of the hundreds of screwdrivers I'd made in my bartending days, and the idea of squeezing fresh juice for each one seemed too labor-intensive to be profitable.
A little later, I heard the bartender ask him if he wanted another.
More oranges out of the basket, and in the juicer. She scooped ice into a tall glass and poured the juice on top.
What? No vodka?
``The usual,'' it appeared, was orange juice on the rocks.
A few days after I returned to Virginia, a colleague from San Francisco called.
``Ruth, are juice bars a big thing in Norfolk?'' she asked.
``No, Karola. If you walked into a bar in Virginia and ordered an orange juice, the bartender would take you for a cop checking out ABC violations.''
``Juice bars are very popular out here,'' Karola said.
``And people go to them just to drink juice?''
``Oh, yes. They even have baskets of wheat grass they make juice out of.''
``I haven't seen a basket of wheat grass yet, but it usually takes a few years for those California fads to reach Virginia.''
``Well, now you know what the next rage will be.''
``The juice bars are fine, but, Karola . . . ''
``Yes?''
``Keep the wheat grass.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
FILE PHOTO
Juice bars, all the rage in California, haven't hit here yet. by CNB