Waking to the sounds of a blender in Wyoming, Minnesota, meant one thing and one thing only. My mother standing at the kitchen counter, punching that blender pulse button with rhythmic confidence, shouting Good Morning!, serving up the raddest of breakfast delights. Better than YO-J. Specialer than Toaster Strudels. Made with more love than Cookie Crisp. My mom was whipping up the most supreme of breakfast provisions: Orange Julius.

The culinary pleasure of homemade Orange Julius still gritty with white refined cane sugar and the subtle sweet of frothed two-percent milk, that chilled crunch of ice cubes that had escaped the blade. Orange Julius: a treat, a summer sunrise, the delight of Florida orange concentrate.

The last time I had an Orange Julius, I was still cradled in baby fat, sleeping in my childhood home. But the memory of taste is strong: it is the sweetness of school's out for the summer, a buttery dawn, that delight of stretch and yawn, air conditioning after a day at water's edge, the sweetest nostalgia.