All I think about is ice cream. Exciting flavors and combinations. One of the professors at the Ice Cream Short Course at Penn State said that ice cream was nothing more than a frozen confection. Now that I have been making copious batches of ice cream in my test machine, I understand. Kirsten, the ice cream maker to be, and I are making daily various types of caramels and nut brittles to add to soft, cool, creamy ice cream. We are making honey ice cream, green tea ice cream, Tin Roof ice cream ( vanilla ice cream with chocolate covered salted peanuts and fudge twirled inside),panforte ice cream, chocolate chip ice cream among many others, as well as varieties of fruit sorbets. The possibilities are endless.

Yesterday I ordered the commercial ice cream machine. It took longer than I thought to get to ordering it. There are so many hurdles to jump over. We had to have city approval as well as various other factors like electricity loads and air or water cooled. I have en-joyed the process more than usual for this project. I guess the weight of my age is calm-ing me down and helping me to proceed slower on the reinventions of my life that I take on.

I also am still a mom. This is a big job right now. Teenagers are wonderful and I love every minute of this time. It feels fleeting. I love the humor that is now shared and bits of time singing in the car. It is a marvelous age.

Mark has taken on the building of the ice cream parlor. I guess we can call it that. It is a step up window in our courtyard, yet it still needs all the things that an ice cream parlor needs. We will open a window when we are open from noon to 8pm and hang out a sign with the flavors of the day . We will sell scoops on cones or in dishes of ice cream and sorbet. Yes, there will be gelato too.

When I was a kid there was an ice cream parlor in Los Angeles call Farrell’s. It was ter-rible ice cream, but they did this wacky thing called “The Zoo”. If you ordered “The Zoo” the staff would put all the flavors of ice cream together in giant scoops in a big stainless steel bowl. This bowl would then nestle into a contraption that was suspended between two young waiters. They held it with two poles on each of their shoulders and the bowl was suspended between them. On top of the ice cream they put lots of plastic animals, like the monkeys on fruity drinks at tropical bars. They then clanged a bell at the serving counter and the boys ran around all the tables in the restaurant with the bowl of ice cream and choking hazards. They then stopped at the lucky table and the ice cream was scooped out by the recipients. WE ARE NOT GOING TO DO THIS! I loved it as a kid, but Farrell’s went out of business, I am not surprised.

I wish I had some great photos to share, but alas I don’t. Stay with me, the ice cream is coming Toute Suite!

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Pad Thai is something that I have always been afraid to make. I have purchased the partially made Pad Thai products in the market and they have been not so good. I haven’t really even known what pad thai was suppose to taste like. I haven’t eaten in many thai restaurants nor have I traveled in Asia. What is wrong with me? Every time I have eaten in a thai restaurant I feel like I get the same mixed up tasting food that I cannot really identify. While I was in State College Pennsylvania for the Ice Cream Short Course, group of us went out for thai food. I was unimpressed. I ordered pad thai because I did not know what else to order and it resembled the stir fry concoctions of my early college attempts at asian cooking.

Last weekend I flew up to Oregon to visit with my mom. An old friend who now lives in the midwest was flying out to visit her daughter at Lewis and Clark. We met and picked up her daughter and two of her friends and headed for the coast. As you know the Oregon coast can be a dreary proposition. The coast of Oregon is wild, cold and windy. Not last weekend.

It was sunny and glorious. We stayed at the home of a friend in Depoe Bay and watched the waves and the stars for two days and nights. We did something else too, we cooked pad thai. Michele had brought with her a “quick and easy” Thai cookbook. It was loaded with step by step photos and detailed easy instructions. Michele had cooked the pad thai, as well as other recipes in this book, many times. She also had the benefit of having traveled to Thailand numerous times. I was bewitched. It was so easy. We soaked the rice noodles, mixed up the sauce, sauteed and few vegetables and shrimp, presto we had pad thai, and delicious at that.

I was determined to duplicate the pad thai we ate in Depoe Bay and luckily found the exact same cookbook, photos and all, at Powell’s Books the next day. I was so happy I bought two and gave one to my other dear friend in Portland. She hadn’t experienced the lesson or the feast, but I was so enthusiastic about it that I think she is cooking it too.

Portland is an amazing place for so many reasons, but food is definitely one of them. After returning to Portland and finding The Book, we met some friends at a new Singapore style cafe called Ping. Guess what I ordered? You guessed it, Pad Thai! It was good there, not just good but great. I recommend going there. It isn’t called Pad Thai at Ping and I can’t remember what it was called. I guess in Singapore it is a different type of melange of Thai and Chinese. I took a few tastes from that dish and made a melange of my own.

As soon as I returned to Santa Cruz I gathered all the ingredients and we have been eating pad thai every night. My family is sick of it and would love another cuisine, but I am a repetitive learner and I am getting it down. I would say that I am pretty good at in now. I do not know why all the other pad thai meals that I have had were so lackluster. It is easy, fun and terrific!

Pad Thai

• 8 oz rice noodles soak for 1 to 2 hours
• 1 carrot grated the long way
• 1 cup of cabbage thinly sliced
• 1 scallion cut on the diagonal
• 1 clove of garlic minced
• 2 cups of shrimp deveined and no tails
• 1 egg cracked and mixed in a bowl
• 1/2 cup fish sauce
• 1 cup water
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 TB Paprika-not too spicy
• 4 sprigs cilantro
• 2 Tb oil
• Sprinkle the finished dish with peanuts and garnish with a few sprigs of cilantro.

Have all your ingredients ready, it doesn’t take long to make once you start cooking.

After soaking the noodles drain them.

Put the oil in a wok or large frying pan. Add the garlic and the shrimp, cook until done. Remove the shrimp and set aside . Add the sauce. Add the noodles and cook until transparent, about five minutes. Add cabbage,scallion pieces and the carrots. Cook about two minutes. Add the egg and scramble. Put the shrimp back in at this time. Stir this all around to mix in the noodles. Add the paprika and stir to make sure all the noodles are coated. Pour out into a serving bowl and garnish with the cilantro sprigs.

Isn’t this the easiest? I just love it. I want to open a pad thai bar. But I am still working on opening the ice cream scoop shop for now, I must calm down.

Ice Cream is coming soon, I promise

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