Before smoothies were a hot ticket item, in the days before Jamba Juice took off, and well before McDonald’s added a Blueberry Pomegranate Smoothie to its menu, my dad was experimenting with early iterations of his own. Thin and soupy, he served his smoothies in a bowl or glass sans straw and he rarely strayed from the limited variety of fruits deemed acceptable by his somewhat picky palate.

He once brought a concoction out to the hammock where I used to spend the better part of my summer days. This version – a pinkish red blend of berries – was more than tasty and my dad let on that he had discovered a secret ingredient. Well I just had to know what it was, so after a relentless interrogation – and probably a somewhat boring one as his every answer was “no” – he finally gave it up. A pea. The secret ingredient was a lonely little green pea.

How was I ever going to guess that?

Not long after my mom took to smoothies and a friendly rivalry began over which parent could make a better drink. Once she recognized the texture enhancing properties of frozen bananas to my brother’s and my delight, my dad lost interest in the competition. Bananas weren’t his bag and whosoever’s bag they might be was, in his mind, not a worthy opponent.

While I carry on in the tradition of my mom’s fruit smoothies, this Silver Palate recipe took me back to that day when I hopelessly tried to guess the secret ingredient in my dad’s fruit smoothie.

This recipe was adapted from The Silver Palate. The recipe in the book called for the addition of crème fraîche, which I didn’t think was necessary. I added a frozen banana to the leftover soup for a breakfast smoothie the following day.

Sweet Black Cherry Soup
6 portions

7 cans, about 9 ounces each, pitted sweet dark cherries
grated zest of 1 medium orange
4 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
3 tablespoons Grand Marnier
1 teaspoon salt

1. Reserve 1 can of cherries for garnish. Drain the rest and reserve syrup.

2. In a food processor, purée cherries until fine. Remove to a bowl.

3. Add 1 1/2 cups of the reserved cherry syrup, the orange zest, lemon juice, Grand Marnier and salt. Stir to combine. Chill until ready to serve.

4. Drain remaining can of cherries  and divide cherries among 6 bowls. Halve the cherries if you like. Ladle soup into bowls; the cherries halves will float to the top.