Ice Cream

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.

Each week, Levi gravitates to the fresh raspberries at our local farmers market.  He insists on buying them claiming to “love them”.  He eats 2 or 3 and then he is done.  I pack them in his lunch box and a few stragglers end up coming home with him.  I can’t toss them.  So, I either eat them or throw them in a baggie and put them in the freezer.

I had just enough fresh and frozen raspberries to make David Lebovitz’s Raspberry Swirl Ice Cream.  Doesn’t that sound good?  I haven’t made any ice cream this summer and it has been on my mind.  Today, the kids are going to arrive home from camp to a very, very, sweet treat.

This recipe calls for vanilla extract.  Instead, I steeped the cream with a fresh vanilla bean.  I cut the pod in half, scraped out the seeds and threw them in the bowl of cream along with the pod.  When it came time to add the custard to the cream, I removed the pod and saved it to make some vanilla sugar.

This ice cream is a small reminder that summer is here and it is here to stay for just a little while longer.

Start with oatmeal cookies (the homemade variety, of course), add ice cream, make sandwiches, then sit back and watch the enjoyment as happy people eat them.

Kids love ice cream sandwiches, and adults feel like kids as they eat them.

Raisins are always a great addition to oatmeal cookies, but when they are frozen, they can get hard and difficult to chew. It seems the perfect way to get their sweet flavor in an ice cream sandwich is to puree them before incorporating them into the dough.

I discovered, too, that giving raisins the puree treatment fools those who dont' care for those little dried grapes. My husband is a good example. He won't eat anything that involves raisins. I offered him one of these cookies, still warm from the oven. After he ate about three of them, he asked, "What is that flavor that I can't quite pinpoint? Dates?" (He likes dates – hates raisins). I thought it safe to share the secret with him. How could he say he didn't like them after already wolfing down three with great gusto? He gave me a sheepish little grin and grabbed another cookie.

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!