I scream, you scream, we all scream for Ice Cream!!!...sometimes.

Have you ever woken up and said to yourself, “I think I’ll make ice cream today?” Me neither. It’s just not something I’d do. After all, as a child, we never had homemade ice cream. I was always envious of the kid who would come back from summer vacation and tell the whole class, “My dad let me turn the handle on the ice cream maker!” I didn’t even know what one looked like. So, it came to me as a total surprise when my birthday came around in July and my family wanted to know what I wanted.

“An Ice cream maker!” I said. Just like that. The words blurted out of my mouth…no thought…no plan, just words.

“Wait a second. You always said that Ice cream is too fattening. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you eat ice cream, let alone make it!” My son, Doug, said.

He was right. In fact, I avoided it for most of my adult life until I discovered Berthillon’s in Paris.

Berthillon’s started out of a window on the main drag of ile saint louis. Every day on my way to the Metro, I’d pass by this open window that sat in a green painted store front with faded gold leaf lettering above that read Berthillon’s. There was a chalk board next to the opening with strange ice cream names written in French. You’d stick your head in the window, tell the guy what you wanted and get the tiniest miniscule ice cream cone you ever saw. I always ordered Salty Caramel because that’s the only flavor I could figure out and the only one I could pronounce. My French was limited. The ice cream scoop was as big as my thumb nail and cost 2E (about two dollars and twenty-five cents…and that was fifteen years ago!) But the taste of that ice cream was pure ecstasy. It became my crack, my heroine or whatever addictive substance you wanted to call it. I was hooked on fancy French ice cream. I would buy two cones a day. One on the way to the metro, and one on the way back. Like all addictions I kept this one a secret. I pledged only to eat ice cream from Berthillons. I would cold turkey it when the plane landed in San Diego, and not touch another scoop until the next year. Lucky for me Berthillon’s was in Paris and I was in La Jolla. My secret was safe.

“I know that’s what I said,” I told Doug. “But Covid has changed everything. Who knows when I might catch it and die? I want to enjoy the days I have left,” I said.

“That’s a bit dramatic don’t ya think?” Doug said.

He was right, but these were desperate times. I was going through ice cream withdrawals and needed my fix! I didn’t see any trips to Paris in the near future.

“You could tell me how to make ice cream, share recipes… it’s something we could do together…or at least over the phone…or text…maybe?” I said.

Doug is a chef. He and his darling wife, Lori, own restaurants in Texas. He had a large compressor industrial ice cream machine and turned out wonderful flavors for desserts.

“Sure. That would be fun. But just get a simple inexpensive ice cream maker. They’re fine for home use.” He said.

He and Lori sent me a great book called Scoops on how to make ice cream and a gift card to Amazon for my birthday.

After much research and deliberation, and the combination of other Amazon gift cards, I ordered a super-duper compressor electric ice cream machine that can churn a quart and a half every twenty minutes! So much for the cheap, home use ice cream maker.

“If the mountain won’t come to Muhammad, then Muhammad will go to the mountain,” or something like that. Berthillon’s is coming to La Jolla