Because that last post got awfully long, I left out a little Food of Love angle that happened while Matt was in the hospital.

But first, the backstory (and no eye rolling — surely by now you realize that there is always a backstory!):

I’ve been making a lot of gelato for about a year or so, which is something that requires a bit of practice to really master.  I’ve been tinkering with milk-to-cream ratios and cooking techniques with the custard, trying to obtain that Xanadu-like state of texture and mouthfeel.

I do this, you see. I get fixated on a particular dish, and I usually don’t let up until a) something more interesting comes along (by far the more common of these two scenarios), or b) I’ve achieved the point of diminishing marginal returns per attempt… in other words, I’ve gotten as good as I’m gonna get.  Then I move on.

The wonderful thing about gelato is its relatively low level of butterfat*, which allows the star ingredient to shine through.  In contrast, the luxe richness of ice cream coats the palate, which is quite lovely, of course — but it can get in the way of the flavor that you’re trying to showcase.  You might think of butterfat as that unknown-and-talented-but-overeager actress that habitually steals the spotlight from the A-lister.  Know your place, butterfat!

With gelato, it’s different.  I’ve invested some of the best wild blueberries, strawberries, and dewberries ever to grace my kitchen into making gelato, with beautiful returns.  The essence of the fresh ripe fruit is so assertive and unencumbered that it’s quite like getting hit over the head with flavor.  Zow!

Obviously, this is a good thing.  I felt that I was really onto something… as though I might really become proficient at this whole gelato business.  That is, until Matt broke the news.

“It’s just so… overwhelming,” he said, when he tasted the dewberry version.  What’s overwhelming?

“I don’t know.  It’s like you’re always trying to max out the flavor or something.”

Hmmmm.  How could I diplomatically tell him that that’s pretty much EXACTLY THE POINT?  After some mental debate, I went with:  Darling, I love you dearly, but that’s EXACTLY THE POINT.

“Well, it’s too much.”

(This is the same man that prefers boxed mac and cheese to the real thing.)

“And what’s with all the fresh fruit?  Why can’t you make a normal flavor of ice cream?”

I gingerly stepped over his blasphemous ice cream misnomer and asked him to define “normal.”

“You know, chocolate, caramel, vanilla…”  He might have listed a couple of other flavors, but I was so bored I think I actually feel asleep for a microsecond.  

Well, I said, since dewberries are gone and peaches aren’t in yet, I was thinking about making a caramel toffee gelato. How does that sound?

“Nowwwwww you’re talkin’,” came the reply.  A winning compromise.  (Side note: Why can’t Congress do this?  Don’t they know that the answers to all our fiscal problems can be found in frozen treats?)

That conversation happened in late May.  The caramel toffee flavor never materialized, because just a few days later… well, you know what happened.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fast forward a week or two.  Matt is in the hospital, recovering from surgery.

He slept a lot, as expected.  I pecked at my laptop and made phone calls.  It was very peaceful** in the very quiet, dimly lit room.

After a particularly long nap, he started to stir.  I went over and sat next to him on the bed.

How are you feeling?

“Okay,” he said.  “Not great, but I’ll make it.”

Is there anything I can get for you right now?

“No.”

[Long pause.]

“But when we get home you might want to make me some caramel toffee gelato.”

It makes me smile now to even think about it.  The man just had untold things done to his urinary tract, and he was thinking about homemade gelato.  Did I marry the right guy, or what?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I had every intention of making that batch of gelato soon after he came home, but our plumbing system had other plans.  I finally got around to it just this week, and I must admit — it was worth the wait.

Caramel Toffee Gelato
Adapted from The Ciao Bella Book of Gelato & Sorbetto by F.W. Pearce and Danila Zecchin

Plain Base (see recipe below***)
¼ cup caramel sauce, at room temperature (I used Stonewall Kitchen dulce de leche sauce)
½ cup coarsely chopped English toffee candy, frozen (I used Heath bars)
¼ cup finely chopped English toffee candy, frozen (again, I used Heath bars)

Make the Plain Base and chill as directed.

Gently whisk the caramel sauce into the base.  Pour the mixture into the container of an ice cream machine and churn according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Transfer to an airtight container and freeze for at least 2 hours before serving.  Or dish some out immediately and serve it half-melted — ahem, I mean soft serve.

*** Plain Base
Makes enough for about 1 quart of gelato.

2 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
4 large egg yolks
2/3 cup sugar

In a heavy-bottom saucepan, combine the milk and cream. Place over medium-low heat and cook, stirring occasionally so a skin doesn’t form, until tiny bubbles start to form around the edges and the mixture reaches a temperature of 170°F.

Meanwhile, in a medium heat-proof bowl, whisk the egg yolks until smooth. Gradually whisk in the sugar until it is well incorporated and the mixture is thick and pale yellow. Temper the egg yolks by very slowly pouring in the hot milk mixture while whisking continuously. Return the custard to the saucepan and place over low heat. Cook, stirring frequently with a wooden spoon, until the custard is thick enough to coat the back of the spoon and it reaches a temperature of 185°F. Do not bring to a boil.

Pour the mixture through a fine-mesh strainer into a clean bowl and let cool to room temperature, stirring every 5 minutes or so. To cool the custard quickly, make an ice bath by filling a large bowl with ice and water and placing the bowl with the custard in it; stir the custard until cooled. Once completely cooled, cover and refrigerate until very cold, at least 4 hours or overnight.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

*Emphasis on the “relatively.”  This ain’t health food, people.

**Also a relative term.  Remember, I live with a toddler.

Tags: dessert recipes, memoirs

In honor of Mother’s Day tomorrow, I thought I’d repost what I wrote last year, which has been one of the entries I’ve received the most feedback about since WFI began.  Happy Mother’s Day!

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Mom enjoying Death by Chocolate at the restaurant where the dessert was invented.

This might sound terrible, but I don’t remember my first Mother’s Day as a mom. Not a thing about it, actually.

It was a very dark time for me. In those first few months of my son’s life, Mom had some very frightening episodes and several hospitalizations. The stress of that, plus trying to figure out how to care for an infant, plus going back to work… well, it was a lot. Did I mention the sleep deprivation?

It was not a celebratory time, so it’s no wonder that I’ve forgotten it.

Knowing myself like I do, I thought I’d want to make up for it this year, on my second Mother’s Day. Maybe brunch at Baba Yega’s, which I’ve had on my list for a long time. Maybe a very special mother/son photo session. Ooh, maybe a massage!

But you know what? As wonderful as those things sound, there’s only one thing that I absolutely want to do this Sunday. I want to spend time with my Mom.

I want the weather to be nice enough so that I can lie on the grass beside her grave. I want to close my eyes and see the pink glow of sunlight filtering through my eyelids; it will be the perfect backdrop for the memories to dance upon.

I will visualize her laughing. I will really try to hear it again, in my mind.

I will think of how she would subconsciously wag her foot when she ate ice cream, out of sheer pleasure.

I will think back on the moments of severe physical pain in my life: migraines, surgeries, childbirth. During many of those times, I intentionally tried to tattoo the experience on my brain. Remember this, I told myself. You’ll need it later. I will try to feel those pains again, literally.

Then I will think about how those painful moments are but a speck compared to what she endured in her last years. I will think about how, instead of retreating inward and feeling sorry for herself, she transcended her suffering and still found ways to serve others until the very end. And blissfully, I will bask in the fact that her pain has ended. Forever.

I will think about Acts 14:22, which tells us we will all endure many hardships in order to enter God’s kingdom. I will acknowledge what this means for me – that I will suffer in some way, too – and I’ll give serious thought to how I can use it for God’s purposes, the way Mom did.

I will acknowledge that it also means other people I dearly love will suffer, and I will think about how best I can bring God’s peace and grace to them in those times. I will have a dress rehearsal in my mind, so that when it happens, I’ll be prepared and strong. They will need me, and I will be there. Just like Mom was.

Then I’ll try to mentally catalogue every single one of our inside jokes, and laugh at each of them. I’ll think of funny things that have happened recently, and imagine what she would have said or how she would have laughed.

And then… I’ll open my eyes. If I’ve had the experience I’m hoping for, I’ll see the cemetery with a fresh perspective. I’ll have forgotten for a moment where I am.

Sometimes people ask me how I’ve managed through these past few years, and my answer usually includes a mention of prayer and meditation. Most people get the prayer part, but the meditation sometimes causes brows to furrow.

If you were one of those people, you aren’t any longer. You just meditated… here, with me.

“Removing myself from myself” and leaving the worries of my daily life behind allow me to really think about what matters most. And remember things I don’t want to forget.

If I get a chance to do that this Sunday, and also get to hear a special little someone say “mammmma”, then Mother’s Day will be a stark raving success.

I love you, Mom.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mom enjoyed pretty much all ice cream, but this recipe for homemade cinnamon ice cream was always a sure bet to set her foot a-waggin’. I wanted to serve it with apple pie, and after checking all my usual cookbooks and magazines, I finally found a good one online.

Cinnamon Ice Cream

2 cups white sugar
1 ½ cups half and half
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

In a saucepan over medium-low heat, stir together the sugar and half-and-half. When the mixture begins to simmer, remove from heat, and whisk half of the mixture into the eggs. Whisk quickly so that the eggs do not scramble.

Pour the egg mixture back into the saucepan, and stir in the heavy cream. Continue cooking over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a metal spoon. Remove from heat, and whisk in vanilla and cinnamon. Set aside to cool.

Pour cooled mixture into an ice cream maker, and freeze according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

Tags: dessert recipes, memoirs

Trends are funny things.  How they start, how they fade, what’s in, what’s out, who says so, and the terrifyingly thin line between avant-garde and hopeless train wreck: it’s all fascinating to me.  Not that I participate much, because I can’t keep up.  But I like watching and learning.

And just as a broken clock is exactly right twice a day, if you stand still long enough, the trends will come and find you — usually when you’re not paying much attention.

I am a child of the 80s.  My formative years were spent in an American culture of wacky excess.  Big hair, puffy sleeves, and shoulder pads that would give a linebacker pause.  No lipstick was too bright, no belt was too wide — and earrings were the size of Christmas tree ornaments.  We wore fingerless gloves and parachute pants. At the same time.

I didn’t know the first thing about the food world then, but looking back, I see that largesse mentality of the 80s was not limited to fashion.  Complicated, pretentious dishes came on the scene, and the fussier, the better.  Artichoke leaves with melted butter, which no one knew how to eat.  Smoked salmon canapés.  Everything had sun dried tomatoes or capers in it.  Or both.  We discovered petit fours and tiramisu.

Remember that scene in The Breakfast Club, when Molly Ringwald pulls a bento box of sushi out of her brown bag for lunch?  I so wanted to be her.

All of that is mainstream today, but back then, those dishes and ingredients were well beyond the reach of ordinary folks. The newer and more exotic, the better.  If you’d never heard of it, it was fashionable.  Bonus points if it had to be flown in from some far flung locale.  Boring familiar food was for boring, working class commoners.

My, how different things are today.  Sustainability is in.  Trendy food folks have embraced the farm to table concept, and are hyper-aware of exactly where every ingredient is grown / raised / butchered / farmed.  Fine dining used to mean eating “high on the hog” (referring to the better cuts of meat above the belly), but these days snout to tail cooking, where the whole animal is used and nothing goes to waste, is the mark of a talented chef.  Cooks pay top dollar for greens and mushrooms foraged locally, or even better, they forage for themselves.  What they put on a plate, more than anything else, is a representation of a specific place and time — which is a very, very cool thing.

But guess what?  This is peasant food.  Growing up in a rural blue-collar community, I was surrounded by folks who killed what they could and ate what they killed.  (I didn’t learn to hunt until much later in life.) We cooked snout to tail because throwing anything out would be a sign of disrespect, and we were raised to believe that any animal that gives its life for our nourishment is deserving of our honor.  And we didn’t call it foraging, we called it free food.  A backyard garden wasn’t charming or glamorous, it was common sense.  And cheap.  Good and cheap: that was the goal.

It’s interesting to see these things come into vogue, and it’s a little odd for the things I grew up with – which seemed so gauche and common and altogether unsophisticated at the time – to suddenly be the “it” thing.  Not that I’m really part of the trend, mind you; I’m just that proverbial broken clock.  The world will soon and once again pass me by.  For the meantime, I’m thrilled to watch the talented chefs of this generation elevate these concepts to the level of high art, and hoping to learn a thing or two along the way.

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This time of year, I am slightly obsessed with foraging for dewberries.  A close cousin to blackberries, they can be used interchangeably, but they have a more delicate structure and a fuller, brighter flavor.  They aren’t available commercially for two reasons: 1) they fall apart during transport, and 2) being the little masochists that they are, they prefer a fairly harsh growing environment and don’t take well to cultivation.

To me, their relative scarcity is a good thing , because the excitement and effort required in getting them makes them taste all the better.

While I’m usually happy with a meager quart of berries to make cobbler with, my mother was the greediest dewberry picker around.  I have vivid memories of her outfitted in a broad-rimmed hat, long pants tucked into rubber boots, and gardening gloves – with a sawed off broomstick in one hand and a bucket in the other.  In fact, my dad so associated dewberry picking with my mother and with home, that when she sent him a photo of herself in all her foraging regalia while he was serving in Vietnam, that’s the one he posted by his bunk so that he’d see it every night.

She didn’t eat berries while we picked them, citing all the potential filth and disease from insects and critters.  The anticipation made the spoils all the sweeter, though.  We would return to the house, carefully wash a pint of the plumpest fruit, and eat them out of bowls with cream poured over.  Heaven.

Dewberry Gelato
Adapted from The Ciao Bella Book of Gelato & Sorbetto by F.W. Pearce and Danila Zecchin

Plain Base (see recipe below*)
3 cups fresh dewberries
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons limoncello

Make the Plain Base and chill as directed.

Combine the dewberries, sugar, and lemon juice in a food processor or blender and puree. Pour through a fine-mesh strainer into a bowl, pressing the solids to extract all the liquid. Discard the solids. Cover and refrigerate the puree until cold, about 1 hour.

Gently whisk the dewberry puree into the base, then add the limoncello and whisk to combine. Pour the mixture into the container of an ice cream machine and churn according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Transfer to an airtight container and freeze for at least 2 hours before serving.

* Plain Base
Makes enough for about 1 quart of gelato.
2 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
4 large egg yolks
2/3 cup sugar

In a heavy-bottom saucepan, combine the milk and cream. Place over medium-low heat and cook, stirring occasionally so a skin doesn’t form, until tiny bubbles start to form around the edges and the mixture reaches a temperature of 170 degrees F.

Meanwhile, in a medium heat-proof bowl, whisk the egg yolks until smooth. Gradually whisk in the sugar until it is well incorporated and the mixture is thick and pale yellow. Temper the egg yolks by very slowly pouring in the hot milk mixture while whisking continuously. Return the custard to the saucepan and place over low heat. Cook, stirring frequently with a wooden spoon, until the custard is thick enough to coat the back of the spoon and it reaches a temperature of 185 degrees F. Do not bring to a boil.

Pour the mixture through a fine-mesh strainer into a clean bowl and let cool to room temperature, stirring every 5 minutes or so. To cool the custard quickly, make an ice bath by filling a large bowl with ice and water and placing the bowl with the custard in it; stir the custard until cooled. Once completely cooled, cover and refrigerate until very cold, at least 4 hours or overnight.

Tags: dessert recipes, memoirs