City Style and Living - Summer 2008 - (Page 21) CE CREAM, AS WITH MOST things, began for me with a whim. It was my mother, who, on my seventh birthday made the best chocolate ice cream I have ever had in my life. While other kids’ birthday parties were held at Chucky Cheese or some cavernous arcade, my mother hosted a simple, homemade affair. The cake was made from a family recipe and the ice cream was concocted at my request, with no recipe in sight. What to do when there is no recipe? Improvise. The ice cream was intensely chocolaty, velvety, soft but intact. I still dream about it. In fact, I still try to find its rich splendour in all different parts of the world. Once, in Hamilton, I thought I came close to tasting it again, but of course, what can compete with the taste of childhood? Then again in Italy even with the intoxicating sensory pleasures of history and food so closely entwined - the Colosseum in the background and gelato in the foreground of my periphery - nothing could compare to my mother’s chocolate ice cream. In fact, because of the spell that this ice cream has cast upon me, chocolate ice cream has become my favourite flavour. So, in the fashion of a connoisseur, I have taken to I When ice cream becomes an obsession, one writer reects on the cause. We ALL scream for CULINARY ADVENTURE trying every single chocolate ice cream I possibly can. It makes for a predictable choice at an ice cream parlour. In my quest, I have come up with a few simple rules (there are very few) that apply to ice cream. No ice crystals. This may sound rudimentary – it is not. I once had crystallized ice cream at a well respected restaurant, which begged the question, “how did they receive such glowing reviews”? Ice crystals give ice cream a freezer burned taste and the texture of the ice cream is compromised. Like an episode of CSI, ice crystals reveal the maker’s rushed lack of composure, an ignorance of the delicate process. My second rule for chocolate ice cream is to make it rich. Watery ice cream is ice cream that never had a chance to reach its potential. It is ice cream made with inferior ingredients. There are probably more rules to be observed, but two suffices for good ice cream. In those days, homemade ice cream was a bit of a tradition at our house. We would get up early and make the custard from scratch. My mother’s specialty was coconut ice cream, which was always made from the real thing and involved time and patience. We would then haul out the electric ice cream maker from the basement. It looked like the 1847 Nancy Johnson original, crank style machine and setting it up involved the effort of at least two people. The ice cream mixture would be poured into the silver canister. We would put on the churning top attached to the paddles in the canister that would rotate in circles. Then, shut tight and packed all around with ice and salt. Then as we plugged it in, a deafening sound would ensue that precluded any conversation. I would take a book and read for the twenty minutes or so that the machine took. We could tell that the ice cream was finished by the abrupt cessation of the grinding abhorrent echo. Then the mixture would sit for another twenty minutes to ripen. We were warned not to touch. Eventually, everyone in our family rushed to get their first taste of the mixture. Every so often I think of recreating the chocolate ice cream. Trying through experimentation to repeat the perfect recipe once again, without the aid of a measuring cup or a carefully calculated recipe, I realized the secret. This perfect chocolate ice cream was made on a whim, spontaneously just as all good things are. . By KAILASH MAHARAJ CSL K & S MEDIA citystyleandliving.com | SUMMER 2008 | 21 http://citystyleandliving.com
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