Walnuts on My Windshield #14

October 4, 2004

There are surprises and then there are surprises. Right now, Scott and Jessica are traveling in China. They are having a great trip. The ministry is expanding into new areas, Scott is just about meeting himself coming and going, and Jessica is experiencing a whole new world! We are staying in touch via email and chat, and we "talk" almost every day.

While they are gone, I thought it would be fun to take the rest of the kids to Grandma and Grandpa's house in North Little Rock, Arkansas. Going to my parents' house is very relaxing for me. When I am there, I have virtually no responsibilities. This time was no different.

The boys played pretty well together, either in or out or on the computer. Katie and Grandma started a puzzle, a tradition for them. They work a puzzle together just about every time we visit.

We arrived Thursday and planned to leave on Saturday. On Friday, I knew my brother and my niece would be coming for supper, so I wasn't all that surprised when Mom started working in the kitchen pretty early. I offered to help, but she said she was fine. I sat at the kitchen table and worked on the puzzle. I saw Mom measuring sugar and assumed she was making some kind of dessert - probably a treat for my birthday, which fell on Sunday, but which would probably be celebrated that evening.

Mom worked in the kitchen an awful long time, and although I offered several times to help, she kept turning me down. Eventually Dad came in and unearthed from a cabinet the ice cream freezer! I was shocked. Mom was MAKING ice cream for me!

Not only did she make ice cream, she made peach, which, I'm sure everyone knows, is my very favorite flavor. She had never even made peach ice cream before, but it was perfectly delicious.

I finally got the whole story. Katie had wanted to give me some peach ice cream for my birthday. I could have told her that was impossible and saved her a lot of looking, but she didn't ask for my input. You can only buy peach ice cream in the middle of the summer at certain specialty stores. It's just not very common at all.

When I was growing up in Cincinnati, Ohio, there was a store called Graeter's, which makes absolutely the very best ice cream in the whole world. Katie had contacted her grandparents to find out about having Graeter's ship me some peach. Their ice cream is SO good and SO expensive that it is sold in pints. They would ship a minimum of six pints, but it would cost both Katie's arms and legs.

At that point, she asked her grandparents to MAKE me some peach ice cream, which they did. That was enough of a surprise, but the fact that they made it virtually under my nose while I obliviously tried to put together pieces of weathered wood and dog eyes made it even more amazing.

The next morning, as we were packing up to leave, Dad told me to save a little room in the van for something he wanted to send along. While I slept in, slug that I was, he had bought a styrofoam bait bucket and filled it with dry ice, so as to send the remaining peach decadence home with me!

Now, I considered the ice cream the main event, but Josiah was mightily intrigued with the dry ice. I won't go into all the things he did with it, but he created lots and lots and lots of "smoke," made a noise like a low volume lawn mower, and caused a small explosion (not all at once, mind you).

The dry ice lasted 24 hours, and the peach ice cream is still in the freezer. I am nibbling away at it very slowly. I have had a great deal of trouble trying to figure out how it fits into the Atkins diet I'm using. You know, that's the diet with no milk, no fruit, and no sugar in any form. I've racked my brain to define peach ice cream - HOMEMADE peach ice cream - in terms of meat, fat, and vegetables, but so far, all I can account for is the fat.

Until Next Time,
Patty

From My Bookshelf:

To America by Stephen Ambrose, rank: 8. I really like Stephen Ambrose. I first read his Undaunted Courage about Lewis and Clark and have been hooked ever since. I listened to this one, and it was also great. I think it is his final book; he died recently. In it, he devotes one chapter to each of his favorite historical topics. Some are people, some are events, and some are broad themes. Reading it was like going to visit a dear friend you haven't seen in a long time.

The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger, rank: 8. This is an account of the final voyage of a swordfish ship named The Andrea Gale. Since I listened to the book, that ship's name may not be spelled correctly. It went down in the recent past off the Outer Banks in a storm that was actually three storms from three different directions that all converged at one time and place. This was not only a harrowing true adventure; it was incredibly well-written. I appreciate a well-written book any time, and when the topic intrigues me, so much the better.

Quote of the Week:

"I am not raising children to follow standards -- I am raising them to set standards."
~ Tammy Drennan

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