Carnival of Ice Cream

What a wonderful carnival, full of all of the good things in life: passion and memories, the Buckeye State and a bit of wine. Do we need anything else to live a refined and fullfilling life? I think not.

Lori, the Smoky Mountain Family Historian, remembers a very lucky (and very smart) dog from Holmes County Ohio.

Terry offers a very heartfelt ode to homemade sherbet, er, sorry purple passion and to southern beauties.

The Blue State Blogger made the most of a night off for the Red Sox, by partaking of some ice cream and some wine. Red Sox? Ice Cream? Wine? Check. Check. And Check. That makes us kindred spirits if not cosmic twins.

Foreign, Fellowship and Family are the keys to ice cream for Margaret. Her husband, Chap and their three girls make ice cream a wonderful nightly ritual.

UPDATE: Amy visited Strawberry Alley for a scoop of French Vanilla in a waffle cone--and writes so well of it, she almost convinced me that I would like vanilla ;)

For those of you who have more ice cream posts send them along. I'll continue to update the Carnival.

Oh, and thanks for letting me host this month. I've had the honor of meeting two new bloggers, Lori and Terry, and I'm looking forward to visiting their blogs often and soon.

Carnival of Ice Cream....

Hey y'all!
It's round up day for the carnival of Ice Cream....a big scoop of thanks to those who have already left links and for those of you who still want in, leave a comment with a link to your post in this comment thread or here.

Orange Crush Sherbet

Growing up in Ohio, the daughter of a Preacher Man and his school teaching wife, we didn't have much money at all. But my parents were masters of creating fun with activities that didn't cost much. Making ice cream on a summer's night was one activity that always seemed to work.

After supper, we'd go up to the neighborhood pool, swim for an hour or two (we spent the entire day there as well, but all three of us were water rats), and come home just as the sky was starting to darken. By that time, Mom had whipped up a container of ice cream stuff and Dad would be out in the driveway, packing rock salt around the outside of the canister. We'd change clothes and head out to help churn. There were no electric ice cream makers for us--at first because they'd not been invented, and later because we couldn't afford one, I suspect, although Dad always said it was because the electric mixed ice cream didn't taste as good. (I asked him about that last summer as he used an electric ice cream maker and he just grunted and gave me a blank look, as if I were crazy.) We'd each take turns churning while the other kids got over-the-head-pushes on the monkey swing from dad and then the entire family would sit on the front porch and eat huge dishes of homemade ice cream.

Mom's recipes always included raw eggs and other extremely dangerous things. Those things were OK for her kids but they are decidedly NOT OK for her precious grandchildren. One of the few recipes from my childhood that still in the active rotation is Orange Crush Sherbet, and it's still one of my favorites:

Orange Crush Sherbet

1 two liter Bottle of Orange Crush
2 cans Eagle Brand sweetened condensed milk
2 cans evaporated milk
1 small can of crushed pineapple, drained

Combine Eagle Brand, evaporated milk and pineapple; mix well. Pour into ice cream freezer container. Slowly add Orange Crush. Make ice cream as usual. Enjoy!

I should also point out that there's no longer a monkey swing. One night, my dad gave my sister the over-the-head push and the rope broke. She landed back of the head first on the asphalt driveway. Concussion. Dad fixed the rope and we continued the over-the-head pushes until we outgrew them. No monkey swing for the grandkids, however. It's too dangerous.....

Carnival of Ice Cream, June Edition

Hey folks, it's that time again.....the Carnival of Ice Cream. Temperatures around here are going to be in the 80's and 90's for the next few days, so it's a perfect time to indulge and then share your indulgence. (one of my favorites is pictured here)

Where: The June Edition is here.
When: Now until Friday June 29th. Links will be posted on Friday.
Why: Because you love ice cream (and because I'm trying to convince Amy that Brown's Ice Cream is better than Lago's-so far, it's not working)
What: Taste or make your own. Visit your favorite ice cream stand. Remember the ice cream man from those endless summer days of your childhood and the blog about it. Then submit your link in the comments section of this post.


I think we're still looking for a July and August host/hostess. Amy?
Enjoy y'all.

Happiness Is...

...an ice cream cone in Maine.

Ode To The Joy of a Scoop

When I moved to New England for the first time, the first fact that I learned about my adopted region was that New Englanders will eat ice cream at any time of the year. The region has the highest per capita consumption of ice cream of any region in the U.S. I learned this trivia on a January day, when the temperatures outside were well below freezing, but the company was providing a TGIF treat of ice cream sundaes, compliments of Hood Dairy--and the stampede to the ice cream was just about as dangerous as Rt. 128 during the morning commute.

Back then it was ice cream from Richardson's; now it's ice cream from Brown's. Picked by Ben (of Ben and Jerry's) as the fourth best place in the country to get a scoop, Ben says "this is the quintessential summer ice cream stand on the way to a lighthouse (locals know it as Nubble Lighthouse)." He goes on to say that the view is the draw (and we agree that the view is wonderful--the above was taken from the car on the way to), but we think that's because Ben didn't order the Wild Maine Blueberry in a sugar cone. It's loaded with real Maine blueberries and a kiddy scoop is almost more than we can eat. On a summer night, all eight windows are 10-12 customers deep, but the wait is always short and it's always worth it. I do all I can to make sure New England remains first in ice cream consumption.