Just recently my
mother asked me to pick up some vanilla ice cream she wanted to serve
with a pie she had made. I came home with a gallon of 'Pet' vanilla ice
cream. She asked me why, out of all the brands at the grocery store,
would I choose 'Pet?' I told her grocery store ice cream,whether it
be Ben and Jerry's, Hagen Daaz or Pet all tasted the same to me and
that Pet was the cheapest.
When I was growing up, my mother would make homemade ice cream in the summer from the local peaches using a hand-cranked ice cream churn. We would take turns "churning" and adding endless amounts of rock salt for what seemed like hours until it was ready. That is what ice cream is supposed to taste like and if you've never had homemade ice cream, do yourself a favor a buy an ice cream churn. They make electric ones now with no hand crank churning required.
I have never mastered the art of making ice cream. Hard to believe
since every cookbook I read tells me how simple it really is. I bought
a snazzy red Cuisinart ice cream maker and I even have an extra drum
sitting in my freezer so that I have the illusion that I can always whip up a batch of fresh ice cream at the drop of a hat.
We've got a few ice cream machines in our house. Two of them we've had for years. They're identical with their big plastic tub that holds a can with a paddle inside of it, with plenty of room between the can and the sides of the tub to pack in lots of ice and salt.
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.