Homemade Ice Cream

What's your favorite flavor of ice cream? Coffee? Chocolate chip? Just plain old vanilla? Mine's black sesame. A friend first introduced me to black sesame ice cream years ago on a trip to Australia when exotic Asian ice cream flavors such as lychee, green tea, passionfruit and sweet corn hit Sydney as the new fad. At first, I was scared to try black sesame ice cream despite my friend's recommendations since it looked (and probably would taste) like charcoal. But as we went out for ice cream several times during my stay, I eventually mustered up the courage to try it, and it was the most delicious flavor I'd ever tasted. Every night after that until I boarded a flight back home, I went out for a scoop of black sesame ice cream after dinner.

I expected the ice cream fad to hit Monterey Park just as it had Australia, but it never did. Meanwhile, I scoured the Southland for another taste of black sesame ice cream, but only found a few pathetic excuses for the flavor. They weren't even trying! Any version of black sesame ice cream that I found in the US wasn't even black and only had a slight hint of sesame flavor.

After years of trying to find and buy black sesame ice cream to satisfy my cravings only to see me toss it aside and declare, "It's not like the one in Australia", the Fiancee finally gave up and bought me an ice cream machine so that I could make the perfect black sesame ice cream myself. I was so excited!! The first time I made ice cream, I wanted to follow the exact instructions so that I would know what homemade ice cream should taste like when it's made right. Only after that would I attempt to modify the recipe to suit my own tastes.

My new Hamilton Beach ice cream maker came with an easy recipe for a basic vanilla ice cream which could be modified to any flavor you'd like. Perfect! I'd follow the recipe and flavor it with black sesame powder. First, I put in lots of sugar, then lots of extremely fatty whipping cream, a tiny bit of skim milk, a drop of vanilla extract, and then a bunch of black sesame bars we'd bought from China which turned into a powder when crumbled. I had no idea how fatty ice cream could be. Just looking at this thick, lard-like mixture made me want to gag. But I was determined to make a pint of the perfect black sesame ice cream, so I dumped the concoction into the frozen, churning machine.

About 45 minutes later, the ice cream was done. After dipping a spoon into the machine to scoop up a tiny bite, my tongue rolled over the rich, flavorful ice cream. I had made a damn good version of black sesame ice cream, but aware that I was eating a once liquified, now frozen form of pure lard, I wanted to gag. No matter how good the ice cream was, I couldn't get he thick, soupy image out of my head. After seeing how much sugar and heavy cream were required, the Fiancee would barely touch it. I had to come up with a less fatty version.

So, I googled a low fat ice cream recipe, and found one that used soy milk and gelatin mixed with a little bit of apple juice as the emulsifying agent rather than heavy cream. The recipe reviews promised a great tasting, nonfat ice cream. I'd found it! I'd have an edible homemade ice cream in no time! Following the recipe, I boiled soy milk sweetened with honey and vanilla extract. Then I mixed in a packet of unflavored gelatin soaked in a few teaspoons of apple juice. Finally, I chilled the mixture in the refrigerator overnight, as the recipe had instructed. Expecting a runny soy mixture the next day, I was somewhat shocked to find a pot of solid soy vanilla jello as I was getting ready to pour the ingredients into the ice cream machine. Reasoning that it must be right, as I'd followed the instructions exactly, I loosened my jello and dumped it into the ice cream maker.

About a half hour later, I ended up with something that looked and tasted a lot like snow. The texture and flavor were so completely off that the Fiancee and I gagged trying to eat it. Now my freezer was full of "ice cream" that neither of us wanted to touch.

A couple of weeks later to prevent a buildup of "ice cream" in the freezer, I returned the machine. Supposedly, the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory makes black sesame ice cream. If I can't drag the Fiancee out there, I'll drag V instead.

Manhattan Girl No More

As my previous post shows, I moved out of Manhattan and into Westchester a couple of months ago after having lived in the "city" for a little more than two years. Yes, yes, I know, I know. Why would you move out of the City? Have you gone mad?! Isn't that what you came to New York for? To live in a small, cramped, relatively overpriced apartment with a leaky faucet and sqeaky, slanted floors next to neighbors who know you about as intimately as you know them not because you've met before, but because the walls are so thin that you hear everything and anything that goes on behind them? And what about always being able to walk out onto a vibrant street full of lively people with the convenience of grocery stores, laundromats, and restaurants right at your doorstep? Ok, so never mind that all these damn people are always blocking your way as you need to dash down the street to do your laundry and somehow figure a way to carry several pounds of clean clothes and a week's worth of groceries simultaneously up five flights of stairs. Considering that you will never have to go to the gym and can knock out errands while fitting in a total body work out, it really can be quite time and cost effective.

Despite all of the little inconveniences, I did actually enjoy my time living in the city. Instead, I've traded the City for an extra 500+ square feet, brand new hardwood floors, granite counters, laundry machine and onsite gym complete with a full sized pool which is comforting on those days when I do miss living in the city.

The Fiancee and I had our week of "suburban awe" when we set foot into a Target for the first time in about two years. Not having adjusted to suburban living yet, we entered the store with our old "city mentality" which directed us to only choose necessary items in order to save on storage space, cost and the number of pounds we'd have to lug back with us. But things were so cheap and space so abundant that things started flying off the shelves and into our cart. Dishwashing fluid for only $.89! Let's get 1o! Costco sized soap bars packages for only $3! Let's get 2! Lamps! They're cheaper than IKEA! We need more lights! What about this bathmat? Let's get new shower curtains! It was the same story at the grocery store. Things were so cheap and easy to transport that we felt compelled to buy six pounds of grapes, two full bags of tomatoes, a gallon of olive oil, 4 tubs of yogurt, a couple of pineapples, 10 broccoli crowns, a 20 lb sack of rice and about twice as many "staple" items as we normally would. Meanwhile, we had a load of laundry going on at the apartment. All of these errands done, and we still had the whole day ahead of us.

Alright, so we live in a sleepy suburban town. But with the money and time we save from the conveniences that a suburb offers, we could get used to this. It's not the City, but we're only a 35 minute train ride away when we need the insanity of Manhattan to keep us sane.