I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream For Ice Cream!

Tune of the Moment: "Too Marvelous for Words" as sung by Frank Sinatra. I feel the need to admit I first heard this song while watching the film "What Women Want", which I adore in spite of the fact that Mel Gibson is the leading man. It has a fan-freaking-tastic soundtrack-songs performed by Frank, Nancy Wilson, Sammy Davis Jr, Nnenna Freelon and more, and yet another soul-grabbing score by Alan Silvestri (love, love, love him).


This is a live version (love seeing the timer in the top right corner-it's so retro!)..

But this is the version used in the film which I prefer (it's just audio)...

As promised, here is my interview with my fantabulous big sister. A little bit about her: she is a long-time ice cream maker and enthusiast who is working on opening her own hand made ice cream shop at the end of the year.

1. What is your favourite flavour of ice cream (or your favourite flavour combination)?

Oooh, tricky question. Whatever flavour I'm currently working on perfecting! Recently that's been lemon chocolate chip, and honey and rosemary ice cream, since we're entering winter here in Cape Town, and the citrus are really good right now, and rosemary survives our mild winters. If I had to pick a couple favourites, they would probably be vanilla cookie dough, toasted almond and butter pecan. All subtle flavours that let the dairy shine through!

2. Why are you so passionate about ice cream? I.e. What is it that you love about the icy, creamy substance?

As an ice cream maker, I like the challenges ice cream presents; balancing flavours, perfecting the texture, creating flavour combinations which both surprise and delight. Ice cream really showcases its ingredients, even intensifies them, making you aware of every nuance an ingredient - toasted pecans, perfectly ripe strawberries, fresh cream - can offer.  And ice cream is an incredibly joyful product to feed to others. 

3. What are the (three) most important qualities that good ice cream embodies?

Good ice cream should be creamy and luscious in texture, use top quality ingredients, and taste primarily of its flavouring ingredient, not sugar!

4. You've lived in and visited many places in the world, how does the ice cream differ from place to place?

Like any internationally recognised food, ice cream takes on different forms in different cultures. This can be reflected in obvious ways, like flavours (green tea ice cream in Japan, strawberry and clotted cream in England) and portion sizes, but also in terms of the texture and sweetness levels locals expect. In Malaysia, ice creams are garnished with a lot of syrups and multicoloured jellies, in Sicily cornstarch is often used instead of eggs to create a lighter texture, and Americans sometimes serve their ice creams sandwiched between cookies. I really look forward to trying local ice creams when I travel to new places.

5. ...Name some of your favourite international ice cream experiences/brands.

Ben 'n Jerry's was my introduction to American-style, fudgy-textured ice creams, and I still think they make the best mass produced product out there. As a student in New England, I didn't have a freezer in my dorm room, so I used to leave a pint on my window sill in winter, where the snow kept it perfectly cold.

As an exchange student in Italy, I lived two blocks from the best gelateria in Bologna, Gelatauro, where I ate gelato almost daily and learned that even frozen foods should follow the seasons. In winter there was no strawberry gelato because local strawberries aren't available then, but I never missed it, when there were persimmon, blood orange and chestnut gelati to try and adore. 
 I think I started to understand ice cream's potential as a flavour showcase and 'serious' food after university, when I was an office intern at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California - dessert at staff lunch was usually ice cream, and I always took a bowlful back to my desk. As with all the food made there, the ice cream was ice cream in its purest form, somehow more than a sum of its parts. That's also where I first tasted noyau, a bitter almond flavour derived from apricot kernels, which is best described as marzipan on crack.

        6. You were recently in New York visiting me, and we ate a LOT of ice 

            cream; what ideas or inspiration did you take home with you?

Travel is so important in prompting creativity, and there are so many amazing flavours and ideas happening in New York! I was blown away yet again by the quality and variety of ice creams at Laboratorio del Gelato's new shop (although I gave the cheddar cheese ice cream a pass!). It made me feel brave enough to re-attempt making basil ice cream, which I abandoned a while ago (tasted like pesto), and I really must try a dried fig ice cream and a salted peanut ice cream (theirs were amazing). 

I also really enjoyed the ice lollies made by People Pops at the Chelsea Market, I tried blackberry and basil, blueberry chai (correction: I tried blueberry chai...but it magically lasted one lick and was whisked out of my hands and into those of another...uh um) and a plum snowcone. I started out making ice lollies before I moved into ice cream, and it made me want to unpack my molds and play around with ice lollies again.  

This week in the kitchen I am trying to replicate Jacques Torres' chocolate chip cookies which after extensive tasting I thought were the best in New York. I think they'd make awesome ice cream sandwiches. I also have a list of potential ice cream flavours I've taken from the amazing jam flavours, cordials and chocolate bars I've seen in New York's gourmet food shops, like strawberry and lemon thyme, and raspberry and ginger. 

6. What do many people not know, but should know, about ice cream/the manufacturing of ice cream?

Mass produced ice cream is often made with vegetable oil substituted for part of the cream, because oil is cheaper and doesn't need to be refrigerated like cream does. Get a funny coating/feeling on the roof of your mouth? There's oil in that ice cream! Mass produced ice cream also usually has more air - known in industry as overrun - beaten into it, because air costs nothing and dairy costs a lot. So when you're tempted to buy a big tub of cheaper ice cream instead of a small tub of high quality ice cream, weigh it - you might find that 'overpriced' smaller tub weighs more, and you are getting more bang - ingredients and flavour - for your buck. I'm a big proponent of not buying any ice cream when I don't recognise items on the ingredients list, because ice cream doesn't need to be full of chemicals and hydrogenated oils to taste good. So support small, independent producers, and pay more to get more. 

            8. Ice cream, gelato, sorbet, sherbet...what's the difference?

Ice cream and gelato are both frozen dairy desserts, but ice cream typically has more fat in it, making it a richer product, and is served at a lower temperature, so it is firmer. Gelato usually has more sugar, and sometimes has powdered milk added to thicken it. Gelato has less overrun (air) beaten into it than commercial ice creams, but roughly the same as high quality artisanal ice creams. Sorbets are made without any dairy, and have an icy texture, and sherbets are made with milk but no cream. I've only seen sherbets in America, and rarely even there.

            9. Which chefs/ice cream makers do you admire and why?

I admire Lindsey Shere, Chez Panisse's original pastry chef and author of "Chez Panisse Desserts", for her classic, elegant taste in pairing ice cream flavours and desserts, and introducing me to flower and herb flavours for ice cream. I still love Ben 'n Jerry's, for their flavours' sense of fun, and showing that mass produced ice cream can be good quality and have soul. And I think David Lebovitz's "The Perfect Scoop" is the best ice cream recipe book out there. 

My big sister-the intrepid ice cream adventurer.

Watch this blog for news on big sister's ice cream venture-it's gonna be super delish and amazing.