 |
| Dry Creek Peaches from the Healdsburg farm at the height of Summer. |
“... When you wash that treasure under a stream of cooling water, your fingertips instinctively search for the gushy side of the fruit. Your mouth waters in anticipation. You lean over the sink to make sure you don’t drip on yourself. Then you sink your teeth into the flesh and the juices trickle down your cheeks and dangle on your chin. This is a real bite, a primal act, a magical sensory celebration announcing that summer has arrived."
~From Epitaph for a Peach by David Mas Masumoto
Michelle did a post a few weeks ago on the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum which I loved for many reasons... primarily the abundance of gorgeous photos that she shot there on location. However, attached to that post, she also wrote and photographed detailed instructions for two kinds of ice cream using a base that is made with non-fat dry milk powder in addition to the cream and milk that are in the recipe. This was new to me, and being that premium ice creams and gelati can be as much as seven dollars for a pint, I decided to make it on her recommendation, and because it looked so darn good in her photos. Well, turns out the ice cream is truly delicious, and quite different from our family standard which we all love beyond reason, our Wilkins Family Lemon Lemon Ice Cream.
After I made the initial batch of vanilla, which was indeed delicious, I decided to make the ice cream again and use up some beautiful and ripe fresh peaches that I had on hand. On this second making, I elected to add some peach purée to the recipe. Mark mentioned that he had very fond memories of making a delectable peach ice cream with dark rum in it some years back. I also being a fan of dark rum, thought that sounded like a great substitution for the vodka in Michelle's recipe which keeps the ice cream from getting rock hard during its stay in the freezer. The peach ice cream was scrumptious, but in a flurry of inspiration from the God of Spirits (the alcoholic kind) the following evening, I topped Mark's and my portions with a little pour of Amaretto liqueur. This small but magnificent addition transformed the peach ice cream into something that seemed to Mark and I at that very moment, to transcend mere dessert. Moreover, it seemed to us that we were truly eating a divinely inspired ambrosia. I know that the word affogato usually applies to ice cream with hot espresso poured over the top, but since the translation of affogato is drowned, I chose to use it as the name for my peach ice cream "drowned" in amaretto.
 |
 |
 |
