Ice Cream

“Brooklyn” is my drop dead cute, young hair colorist at Frederick Fekkai! What do we have in common other than the color of my roots, you ask? Food! We both love to cook. This morning I was mouthing off about my newest secret food sin – Hagen Das Dulce de Leche Frozen Yogurt with Maldon Salt flakes sprinkled on top….

“OMG, have you heard of The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck?” he asks.

“OMG No? A Gay Ice Cream Truck???”

“… With a painted rainbow soft cone and Disco music! I had the best vanilla bean ice cream with Bariani olive oil and sea salt!”

OMG!

I went to the web site.

Remember as a child running up the block trying to catch the Good Humor Man? Well, with Twitter you can chase the Gay Truck all over town!

For the past two months, my children and I have been trying all kinds of ice cream places in and round the city. After Eli’s post on finding the best hamburger in Los Angeles over at my other site, BigMouthLA, he made his own editorial calendar of what foods he wanted to critique next. Ice cream, pizza, macaroni and cheese, and burritos are at the top of his list.

Here is his list of favorites:

Milk
This place is Eli’s obsession. Since his first taste over 2 years ago, according to him, nothing beats Milk. The extensive menu of both sweet and savory has something for everyone (and ironically their salad’s are some of the best). From a Milky Way Shake to a Warm Ooey Gooey Chocolate Sundae, to the Citrus Vanilla Float, everything is off the charts good! The Mint Chocolate Crunch Shake was his latest tasting; mint ice cream, chocolate chips, and crunch malt balls. For a 13 year old that is one heck of a cocktail. Milk is one of our family favorites. For me it is always the Scooter Pie (marshmallow sandwiched between two cookies and covered in chocolate), but it is their logo that sends me to the moon and back!

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.

During summer, I take every opportunity to make ice cream or sorbet. (If you look in my freezer, you'll find a reserved space for the ice cream maker container.) There really is no better time to make frozen treats than on the hottest summer days. And who wants to bake anyway? (Though I still bake summer pies and cakes.) Sorbets are my favorite because they're easy to make and full of fruit flavor. And you can pretty much make sorbet out of any fruit. There's no custard to cook as with ice cream, and in most cases the fruit goes in raw—keeping the best fresh flavor.

Since sour cherries are in season right now, I couldn't help not making a sorbet out of them. I love it when sorbets are more like palate-cleansers than overly sweet icy desserts. And what fruit could do the duty better than sour cherries? Only one cup of sugar goes into taming the sour cherries' tartness, ensuring a little tang lingers. A little bit of lemon juice in the mix helps keep the color bright more than making the sorbet sour. This dessert has everything going for it flavor-wise—you really taste the cherries. It's not laden with any unpronounceable ingredients. It's just pure and natural.