Ice Cream

If anyone asks what my favorite fruit is, I always answer peaches, but not just any peach. White peaches are my absolute favorite fruit. Besides eating peaches as they are, my other favorite ways to enjoy them are in desserts. I love this peach galette, a foolproof fruit tart recipe that I rely on every summer. But I also love to make sorbets, ice creams, and sherbets. What could be a better dessert than a cooling scoop or two? This summer it's white peach sherbet all the way.

Just think of the sherbets from when you were a kid and the ones available in the supermarket. Don't you ever wonder what those fluorescent colors are actually made of? They're hardly fruit. Though as a kid I too loved eating them, but not anymore. This recipe couldn't be easier. Sherbet is unlike ice cream in that the milk or cream is not cooked. In ice cream you almost always need to make a custard from eggs and milk and simmer it until thick. Sherbet is simply puréed fruit mixed with milk and then frozen.

It was a Pavlovian response.  Not just the salivating and the excitement, but the begging my mother for coins, the heart- pounding fear I’d miss it, then the shrieking, running out to the street to see the white truck with the painting of the ice cream bar on the side cruising slowly down the hill.

Fat chance I’d miss the Good Humor man—he had a vested interest in not being missed.  He thoroughly enjoyed selling his wares and making kids happy in our stultifyingly hot, humid summer suburbs.  But the happy memory of that children’s song’s tinkle can still make me drool, (much like a fountain’s trickle can still make me tinkle).

When was the last time you ate something that made time stop and took you back to your childhood? Berthillon  in Paris is a dreamy ice cream shop on the Isle St. Louis that will do just that...They make the World’s best hot fudge sundae, period!

There are so many choices of ice cream and sorbets, that are all freshly made in-house. The ice cream case is filled with colors and texture like a Tiffany’s jewelry case without the armed guard. Most well-heeled patrons can hardly decide, pointing, discussing and trying small spoonfuls. Not me.

When pretty pink rhubarb stalks show up at the market, you know that summer isn't far behind. Strawberries, too. Known as the pie fruit, rhubarb isn't just for pies. As one of my favorite vegetables (yes, it's a vegetable), I try to take every opportunity to make a unique dish every year when it's in season. Cobblers, crisps, compotes, and pies are all traditional. But this time I made sorbet.

This dessert couldn't be any more refreshing or palate-cleansing. Rhubarb has a tart, slightly astringent taste. That's why usually rhubarb desserts have a lot of sugar. But rhubarb's tartness is best tamed by its buddy, the strawberry. The two are a match made in dessert heaven. Strawberries keep the sorbet on the slightly sweet side, without the use of too much sugar, and brighten the pink color, making it appealing in taste and in beauty.