Goodbye May, Hello June Bug

I have never once put ice cream on my list of favorite foods. However, every now and then I am a fan.

Last night to celebrate the end of May and the start of summer we made fresh strawberry ice cream. Fresh strawberries sort of tinted the ingredients a pale, pale shell pink. Bits of red berries hidden here and there. Then with the other half of the batch we made Salted Caramel. Oh my. Really good. The tawny color with the ribbons of caramel swirling and twisting through the frozen goodness. Then every once in a while your tongue hit upon a bit of high quality salt. You know that ying/yang thing? Salty and sweet? Just perfect.

Yes, we took the boys to the Ben and Jerry's factory in Vermont. Great family vacation memories swirl into my mind. Kind of weird when I think about how one of the boys is allergic to dairy. What kind of goofy parents were we? We have taken them to the dairy in Tillamook, Oregon to watch and sample cheese and of course ice cream. Again, I ask, what were we thinking?

Mom's always get the stupid, goofy flavors. Here is the scene, a tow headed boy waits not so patiently in line, finally he picks out some ridiculous flavor (because it was a cool color), berry peach twist. Said boy tries one lick and then says "mom, want to trade?" Hey, maybe that is why all these years I have not been an ice cream lover?

All four of us agree on the best ice cream (read that as frozen butter fat) we have ever, ever, ever had was in Quaddicook, Quebec. Side of the road stand, pure sugar and pure cream and then butter fat glued it all together somehow. It was a bonding moment for sure for this family. That was the moment in time when the bar for ice cream was set as high as it is.

I am now on a quest to find the perfect popsicle mold. I am determined to buy different ones for our three families. I am collecting recipes. I want to spend the summer months perfecting the most wonderful homemade treats. I want to chat about how each turned out. What the best combinations were. I want all of our e-mails and phone calls to be about popsicles and ice cream.

The summer months ahead are going to be filled with talk of ice cold treats. We will talk about really wonderful colors and flavors and textures. There will be very little to talk about floods and medical issues and worry and fret. Our family will direct the way our conversations go. We will make the effort to determine to live out our summer days in little moments of happiness.

How you spend your days, is of course how you spend your life.