We all scream for ice cream!

[thewayne]

I've mentioned before that I have a new favorite ice cream: Godiva's Midnight Swirl. An amazing chocolate ice cream. There's one problem with living at 9,000' - well, there's many, but one in particular with ice cream. IT EXPANDS. So in addition to it thawing a bit because it takes half an hour to get home from the grocery store, the lid pops up a bit. In the warmer months it also dribbles. In the freezer, I put it on the bottom under a metal shelf, which means - shucky darns! - you gotta eat down the ice cream a bit or the puffed-up bit will get squished down and make a mess.

Oh, horrors! You have to eat some ice cream before you put it away!

I called Russet into the kitchen as I also got her some chocolate strawberry which had the same problem.

We were both trying to come up with a bad joke - I have thoroughly corrupted her in the almost 20 years that we've known each other - I finally came up with 'We must suffer for our just desserts' which she liked and she was trying to come up with something along the lines of the Dessertderata which prompted me to say 'Go placidly amongst the noise and haste and remember the value of really high butter fat quantities' to which she told the poodles 'Will somebody go over and bite the man?'

Comments

[disneydream06]

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Godiva chocolate ice cream?
That sounds soooooooo YUMMY. :o
Hugs, Jon

[thewayne]

Fortunately it's only available in the small containers.

[disneydream06]

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[silveradept]

How regrettable that you have to eat the ice cream before you can put it away.

Much less regrettable about all the excellent joking going on.

[thewayne]

Heh.  Thank you!

[acelightning73]

You need some liquid nitrogen to keep your ice cream cold enough.

[thewayne]

ROFL!  I do have access to it....

[acelightning73]

I have participated in the making of liquid nitrogen ice cream. The texture's not quite the same as that of churned ice cream - the nitrogen forms larger bubbles, creating a softer but creamier-tasting product. I don't know what it might do to already frozen ice cream, but it probably tastes pretty damn good either way.

[thewayne]

I've had LN ice cream, and frankly, I wasn't impressed.  The problem was that the people up here are willing to use inferior cream and milk and such when making ice cream, and they end up with an inferior final product.  And frankly, I am a snob.  I do not like inferior ice cream, it just doesn't taste good!  I don't eat at ultra-expensive restaurants, but if it's a matter between a $20 meal and I know a $25 or $30 meal is much better tasting, I'll go for the more expensive place usually.  Ice cream is not a constant indulgence and I don't want the cheap stuff, I'd rather go without! :)

[acelightning73]

The chef at a site where I was attending a pagan event supervised the cryogenic ice cream, and this was in upstate NY - dairy country. He simmered the milk and cream with a vanilla bean, and made a nice creamy custard out of it then mixed in the LN2 and produced a rather open-textured ice cream, which tasted pretty good. My son the foodie participated, because he wanted to be able to make wine and beer slushies for events in hot weather. I think he did, at an event I didn't attend.

[starwatcher]

I'm sure it doesn't hurt your feelings to eat ice cream before you put it away -- and I guess the expansion is due to lowered pressure?

HowEVER, if you want to alleviate the thawing, my method works well. When I plan to buy foods that need to stay cold, I take a cooler (aka "ice chest) with reusable ice packs inside. I set the ice cream on one layer of cold packs, put another layer on top, then the other food on top of that, with a folded towel over the top of that. (If there's room.) I want as much insulation as possible.

[thewayne]

I'll do that sometimes if it's really hot, and if I'm in Phoenix and I'm having to shop in the summer in the middle of the day.  But with my parents gone and the house sold, I suspect those days are coming to an end.  Here, I don't think half an hour is terribly injurious to the products. Ice cream contains a lot of air, and because of the lower air pressure of ascending from 4,500' to 9,000', it expands which causes the top to pop and sometimes drizzling if it's warmer. The air is what makes it fluffy and less dense.