Socially Accepted

Ice Cream is about as social as you can get.  From the brilliant suggestion in a MaryJanes' Farm Magazine in the summer of 2011, we've begun a neighborhood tradition, two years running now, of having an ice cream social the first Sunday after Labor Day.

The weather has shown us its extremes of melt-your-ice-cream-in-a-minute 90 degrees the first year and 68 degrees with a noticeable breeze this last Sunday.  No one seems to care either way.  What fun it is for folks to chat about their summer vacations and projects, to catch up on how school goes for the young ones, to drip ice cream and wait briefly in line for third helpings of ten varieties of home-made delicious goodies.

Nearly all the recipes came from The Perfect Scoop, by David Lebovitz.  The fun part was eating the bowls filled with all the icy sweetness.  Making ice cream cones shaped into bowls is delicious way to use up all the egg whites generated from custard-type ice cream.  If this kind of effort for a special dessert sounds like it might be fun, check out Joe Pastry for the recipe.

This batter is sticky!

Cookie dough scoop

Two circles are better than three

Shape the bowls over an inverted glass

There are plenty of Things I get to do today, but I must remember what was learned the previous time I made these bowls.  1.  Thin is better than thick even if your circle is bigger than the 6 inches:  easier to shape the bowl when it comes out of the oven.  2.  Use a cookie dough scoop for measuring out the 2 tablespoons required for each bowl.  3.  If you put 3 circles on a baking sheet, the third one will have cooled too much to shape it easily.  More is not always better.  Sometimes it's just more.  4. Do this again next year and for as many years as you can.  5.  When the neighbors visit, they become and stay friends.  When they stop talking to each other, there's space for problems to slip in. Fill folks with ice cream to keep things sweet.

The Perfect Scoop*

This is not about ice cream.  There is a fabulous recipe book by that title* with everything you need to know about ice cream by David Lebovitz.  Sorbets, sherbets, ice creams, granitas and toppings and cones--everything.  But this post is not about ice cream.  Its about a scoop--a perfect one.

Yesterday's Things I get to do today included tending the front flower bed, the one by the curb.  It faces east and dries out quickly after a watering.  Mulch would be the answer in our area, something like bark dust.  Here in Oregon you can hire a big truck with a huge hose that will pump a cubic yard in three minutes.  People cover all their bare ground with bark dust.  Keeps the weeds down (for awhile) and looks tidy and uniform.  My mulch is similar but is enhanced with compost and good things for the plants.  It helps hold the moisture in the ground because sometimes in Oregon it does not rain.

Putting mulch in an established flower bed needs to be done carefully with a degree of sensitivity and attention.  The big truck and the hose are out.  My usual technique is to gather what I can between my two hands and place it between and around plants.  By the end of the second wheel barrow load heading out to the flower bed, my back starts talking to me in a low, grumbly tone.

Bottomless milk jugs
made into plant cloches

The perfect scoop

So yesterday I remembered a recycling tip about making scoops: from plastic jugs and containers.  Ding Dong!  The little pile of cloches used earlier in the season to keep the bell peppers warm popped to mind.  They are made from gallon milk jugs with the bottoms cut out.  All I needed to do was grab the handle and scoop.  It held three times what my hands could carry.  It was easy to shake it around the plants without having to bend over so much.  It was fast.  It was perfect.

It was also hot and noon straight up when I finished, and all I could think about was the Perfect Scoop--of ice cream.