Sometimes work is boring. Especially after a nice long weekend. Even more so after the last long weekend til Christmas. So here's something to wake you up before reading this week's scintillating news.

Dr. Shilpee's thought for the week

Nutrition is a pretty complex subject. Or so you'd think, what with all the conflicting information that's out there right now. What's hot, what's not, how much Omega 3 you should be rubbing into your biceps every morning – it's enough to make you want to weep gentle tears every time you get to the checkout. So we thought we'd ask our very own Dr. Shilpee to post her nutritional thoughts on our blog every week. She'll be tackling everything from sugar to traffic lights and there'll be a chance for you to get involved in the debate each week, via the comments. Then every Friday, Shilpee will wrap up the discussion with a well thought out comment. Sort of like Jerry Springer's Final Thought but without all the face bashing beforehand. You can read her very first post right here.

Boysenberries – straight from hazelnut land

Our Sam has just come back from the States where she's been learning the ins and outs of the boysenberry. For those of you who've never seen this berry in the flesh, boysenberries look like a Sumo blackberry and are thought to be a cross between a loganberry, blackberry and raspberry, though no one is really sure. We get ours from the Willamette Valley in Oregon where they also grow hazelnuts, grass seed and Christmas trees. It's a handy place to be if you're making a hazelnut and grass seed boysenberry pie in December. Read more about Sam's trip and boysenberries here.

Cereal/Hunk of the Month

Each month, our Becca champions a different cereal from our kitchen. Sometimes it's some sort of chocolatey gubbins, and in other months it's healthy bran stuff and might look like hamster food. Our designer Stu has a weakness for massive bowls of cereal and has become the unexpected poster boy for our cereal of the month. Since mentioning his love of cereal a couple of weeks ago on the blog, the Stu fanclub has grown substantially including a top billing on this lady's blog in Germany. And there are a few chaps who are interested too. Seems like the way to a man's heart is through some starchy wholegrain flakes of breakfast goodness.

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This week’s treat of a newsletter contains Olympic heroes, tongue twisters and egg warmers shaped like owls. Don’t say we’re not good to you.

Our very own Olympians

We don’t like to brag but it’s not every week you win an Olympic gold medal. Especially not in the Lightweight Men’s Four Rowing event. A proud day indeed. Okay, so technically, none of our boys were actually rowing in the winning Danish team but as the third official sponsor of the Guldfireren (a.k.a The Gold Four) we like to think we had a part in their Olympic success. Eskild Ebbesen (pictured above with our Tanja) pops into our Copenhagen office every couple of weeks to pick up some smoothies the team’s training fuel, give everyone a few tips on their sculling technique and occasionally, lets us touch his biceps.

Tongue twister

Peaches and purple passion fruit, peaches and purple passion fruit, peaches and purple passion fruit, peaches and purple passion fruit, peaches and purple passion fruit. Not the winning entry from the local tongue twisting tournament but the name of our new smoothie of the month . Packed full of the plumpest peaches and the purplest passion fruits present, we had to wait until the peaches were at their very ripest before making it. So, please rest assured that this nectar in a bottle is at the pinnacle of peachy perfection and make sure you have a swig or two before it prances past your perfectly poised, er, fingers.

Wool be ready

The Big Knit is back. We’ve been doing it for a few years now but if you don’t have a Danny la Rue what it is, it’s where we ask good folk around the country (like you) to help us knit a whole load of little woolly hats to pop on our smoothie bottles. Contrary to popular belief, we’re not running an egg cosy blackmarket on the side. Instead, for every behatted bottle sold, 50p goes to Age Concern to help keep older people warm this winter. Last year we raised over £200,000 and this year, with your help, we'd love to raise even more money. To get you started knitting, we've put together some handy knitting packs with patterns, wool and your very own hat-o-meter. If you fancy one, just click here and your crocheted creation might end up as Hat of the Week.

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Hello. Hope you’re alright. This week's news contains that nice man, Bill Bryson, some new drinks and the perfect egg poaching technique. Action packed as ever then.

Hello there

This week, we have not one but two new recipes to introduce you to. They’re so shiny and new that they might make your eyes hurt to look at. But only in a good way. First up is our cranberries, yumberries and blackcurrants recipe. For those who think we’ve made the name up, we haven’t. Yumberries are also known as yangmei and have been around in China for centuries. They taste like the lovechild of a raspberry, strawberry and orange (it’s complicated) and are really nice when mixed with cranberries and blackcurrants. Which is lucky. Next up is our new kids recipe pomegranates, blueberries and blackcurrants. It contains the tastiest, purplest fruit we could lay our hands on, meaning it’s purpler than your thumb after you’ve hit it with a really big hammer. Plus it tastes very good. Please make both these recipes feel welcome, show them where the fridge is and maybe invite them over next time you have the neighbours round.

Bye for now

And as we welcome two recipes to the family, it’s with a heavy heart we bid farewell to two old favourites this week. Vits A & C and Vit C have been around for a while and like a trusty dog, they’ve stuck with us through the good times, the bad times and the dodgy haircuts. But now it’s time to put them out to pasture, bid them a fond farewell, and let some of our new recipes take the limelight. Please join us in taking a moment to remember them and all the fridges, shopping baskets and lunchboxes they’ve ever graced.

Stop the Drop

Not many things make us cross. But dropping litter is a different matter. It’s not big, it’s not clever and it makes that vein in the side of our heads throb rather unattractively. Each year, we drop 25 million tonnes of litter and then spend £650 million trying to clean it up. Which is madness. Thankfully, Stop the Drop is an initiative to stop just that. Organised by the excellent people at Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) and fronted up by the lovely Bill Bryson (who’s also the president of the CPRE), there are loads of simple ideas and tips on how we can all do our bit to make our land green and pleasant once more. If you were out on Monday night and missed Bill talking about it on Panorama with some Wombles, you can watch the show again here. Otherwise, there’s lots more information on how to be less messy here.

Read all about it

The Times. A bastion of fine journalism with nice magazines at the weekend. The good people from Wapping helped us out at the fete by providing papers for all, and have also offered us (and therefore you) a deal on their esteemed newspaper – a 20% discount on a regular subscription to The Times and The Sunday Times. You get a special code – C1008 – and then subscribe online or on the phone (0800 096 5248), quoting the code. Soon afterwards, a magical book of vouchers will appear, and you’ll be able to use them to buy your daily paper or hand them over to your local newsagent and ask him to sort out home delivery. We’d go for the latter (boiled eggs, soldiers, nice bit of Radio 2) but the choice, as they say, is yours.

And finally...

Well done to Vickie, Daisy C and Sarah S who won our OJ competition from last week. Cartons of that very fine stuff on their way to you soon.

And finally finally...

Hairy Mary, Wickham’s Fancy and The Jungle Don. Not the latest chart sensations to hit the street but the polite names for those flies with feathers up their bottoms. Just in case you were wondering.

The orange has landed

After spending years making orange juice for our smoothies, we decided it was wrong of us to keep all the good stuff we’ve learnt about oranges and squeezing locked up in a cupboard. So instead, we’ve used all our squeeze expertise to blend 12 of the finest oranges money can buy into a fancy new carton and called it innocent orange juice. Our oranges come from all over the world so some weeks, our OJ might taste sweeter and other weeks it might taste sharper. One thing’s for sure though, it will always taste delicious, 100% natural and never ever of poky, musty cupboards in Shepherd’s Bush. We’d love to hear what you think about it here and if you fancy winning some for yourself, here’s your chance.

A feteful weekend

And so another year of fete punnage draws to a close. Despite the rain, wellies were wanged, ferrets raced and a right good time was had by all at our village fete last weekend. Thanks to everyone who came along – we’re very happy that you didn’t let a bit of water stop you enjoying the poetry slamming, the homemade cakes and a bit of a dance in the park. It really wouldn’t have been the same without you and we hope you enjoyed yourselves. If you’ve got a spare moment, we’d love to hear what you thought of the fete here. And if you’ve got any nice photos from the weekend, we’d love to see them on our fete flickr group.

Conor is back (again)

You might remember our Conor - haiku writing, cupcake eating, ginger bearded legend of the loading bay. He started as our Office Superman back in 2006, moving smoothies from here to Basildon and then went off to ride bicycles round Europe and train as a teacher Oz. He then came back again last Feb to help out for a couple of months before heading off on his merry way again. And then he came back again. Went away. Came back. You get the picture. Anyways, he’s back for a couple of weeks to help out (again) and we’re beside ourselves with happiness. Fingers crossed the weather will perk up a bit for one of his infamous barbeques.

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