Ice Cream

I hate that I'm posting so sporadically. I'm beset by a pretty harsh apathy lately; I think it's the result of coming home to This Mundane Life after the week of vacation. I've resisted laundry, wanted only to nap in the afternoons and sleep in every morning, and I hope against hope that my love of the kitchen will snap me out of it.

Tonight I marshaled my resources for a second attempt at strawberry ice cream.  Last night's attempts ended in failure when I didn't read the directions carefully enough. I ended up with an expensive, lumpy mess that noone would eat. I fed it to the dog.

Tonight I started over. I had to supplement the cream with some from Kroger; I knew my cream was richer, yellower, and generally better, but it was like looking at the difference between an egg white and an egg yolk.

That's how I feel lately about all the foodstuff in the grocery store. It feels like our Science and Sanitation culture has taken over, and everything should be Properly Sanitized, Whitened, Homogenized. All the eggs in a carton must be brown or white. None of the beautiful blue-green ones I get from my coworker. The cream - heavy cream - was thin, white, and tasteless. I'm bummed that I had to use it in my ice cream.

I won't go off on that rant though. We've been doing pretty well with our home eating. We're still working on the chicken that I roasted Sunday morning with carrots and potatoes and served with the leeks, kale, and mustards. Monday we had black bean burritos, and for lunch, Burgundy and I had the leftover kale/mustard concoction. Last night, I made leek and potato soup, and tonight we had salad (Mark bartered some of his garden herbs for two lettuces on Saturday) and black bean burritos. Mark and I added chicken to ours.

I invited my family over for Easter, but I don't know whether they'll come over or not. Mom said something about going somewhere with Dad for the three-day weekend. I want to try boeuf bourgignon again, this time with the dog firmly locked in his kennel.

The timer's just gone off, telling me I should check in again on my ice cream. I still had 5 pounds of strawberries left, so I've been eating them with my granola. Last night I pureed and strained a couple of pints of them, and tonight I took my second stab at adapting the recipe for raspberry ice cream from Alice Waters' Chez Panisse Fruits. Lord, please let it be good.