Monday, August 31, 2009

Ice Cream

"I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!!"

Most of you (at least, most of you who grew up in the US) howled this at your parents at some point while you were children. Ice cream is one of those wonderful, simple pleasures that - unless you are lactose intolerant or some such thing - help ease our way through the hot days of summer.

It's also a cash cow for enterprising entrepreneurs.

When I was young, we had two or three brand names of ice cream back home in Pittsburgh, and they were all the brands of local dairies. Isaly's was the best, Otto's came from the dairy that delivered our milk (yes, the refrigerated truck used to bring glass bottles of milk that were placed in the insulated case outside our door), and there may have been one or two others I've forgotten.

Nowadays, of course, every supermarket has row on row of cases of ice cream. There are a million different brands, most with off-the-wall names featuring odd spellings and umlauts over one or more letters. The most expensive brands offer odd combinations of flavors and come in ever-smaller containers at ever-increasing prices. It's sad.

It's also one of the reasons why Agnes has invested in an ice cream freezer so that we can make our own.

This is not, of course, one of those exhausting, hand-cranked-keep-filling-the-tub-with-ice-cubes -and-rock-salt freezing buckets that we had to crank for hours on end until the ice cream froze. No, this is a high-tech device with a self-freezing bucket that churns out wonderful homemade ice cream in a short time with none of that manual labor stuff. Agnes has so far made passion fruit ice cream and a wonderful mint chocolate chip concoction. She's bought ice cream cookbooks and searched the Internet for even more recipes. I don't know how she's missed this one so far...


Ice cream. Don't leave home without it.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

10 comments:

Amanda said...

Y'know....I've been living in Palembang too long. I didn't know there was such a device to make your own ice cream!! I WANT ONE!

John A Hill said...

I love homemade ice cream. We have the old-fashion freezer with the crank replaced by an electric motor. You still have to keep filling it with ice and salt, but not having to hand crank it is an advancement. I've seen newer, high tech models, but have yet to buy one. It's good to know that they produce a good product.

How appropriate...wv: pigau--French for what Americans do with a bowl of home made ice cream--pig out.

Bandit said...

Sounds like Agnes is treating you right. Although it's frozen custard, I'm going to beat Mike to the punch and mention Ted Drewes here in St. Louis. I'm suprised John didn't bring it up.

What orchestra performed at Wolf Trap and who was conducting. I thought it might be Leonard Slatkin and the National Symphony Orchestra. Slatkin conducted the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra for many years before going to D.C.

Mal Kiely [Lancelots Pram] said...

We have "Annie's Ice Creamery" here in Bathurst, and they make their own ice cream. people literally travel 100's of miles to eat their delicious offerings :)

Leslie David said...

mmmm....ice cream. You didn't get involved in The Great Ice Cream Debate with Bryan in FB. :)

We had Stewarts Ice Cream stores--the ice cream was and still is made in Saratoga Springs. My first real job was working there with several of my high school classmates.

I have one of those tiny crank machines you put in the freezer but have never used it, although I had visions of making cassis sorbet.

Mike said...

Like John said. The crank is replaced with a motor. But it still comes out the same with less work.

By the whey, I read in a magazine years ago that whey is an undesirable ingrediant in ice cream. That the really good ice cream doesn't have it. That would be Eddy's.

Apparently whey is a milk by-product and to get rid of it they put in ice cream.

The Mistress of the Dark said...

Can I have gelato? Its almost the same as ice cream.

Hmmm...tomorrow the ice cream man cometh...kinky that sounds :)

Bilbo said...

Amanda - I'm sure that you can order an ice cream maker online...and from what I've seen, you can get all sorts of exotic ingredients in Palembang!

John and Mike - I'm surprised neither of you made the obvious smart crack about cranks and ice cream.

Bandit - it was the Filene Center Orchestra conducted by Ludwig Wicki, accompanied by the City Choir of Washington and the Fairfax Choral Society's Children's Choir. No big names, but great music.

Mal - good plug for Annie's Ice Creamery, but Australia's a little farther than I'm ready to go, even for great ice cream.

Leslie - I stay out of the debates and such on FB...the blog takes up enough time!

Mike - you have a whey with a good story...

Andrea - watch that kinky stuff...this is a family-friendly blog! ;)

Melissa B. said...

And don't forget The Ben & Jerry's Stressbusters Diet!

Mrs. Geezerette said...

When I was a teenager I had a job working at Clara Mae's ice cream shop where the owners made their own ice cream.

Fresh out of the ice cream maker, before it was sinfully transformed into a frozen hard-as-a-brick canister of ice cream, came this heavenly silky, creamy frozen custard that was to die for. One of our regular customers always came on ice cream making day for his heavenly treat.

The closest thing on the market today to Clara Mae's freshly made ice cream is Target's Archer Farms Madagascan Vanilla ice cream. And its light in fat content. Think I'll go get myself a scoop right now.