On "Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi"

So, while I was up in NH, I read Geoff Dyer's new novel, Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi. I'd heard of Dyer before but never read anything by him, and the main reason I picked this one up was the Varanasi in the title.

It is a sad fact (to me, at least) that there are very few good novels set in Varanasi--or, if they're around, I've never heard of them. There's one I couldn't get through (Sister India by Peggy Payne) and another I started with anticipation and finished in great disappointment (Pankaj Mishra's The Romantics. Even more irritating were the glowing US reviews, including in the Washington Post and New York Review of Books, which had me muttering, "What book were you reading?" (The Indian reviews were mixed.)) Charlotte Bacon's lovely second novel There is Room for You has a section set in Varanasi, but I don't think that can count as an actual Varanasi novel.

So, I picked up the Dyer mostly for that reason. And then there were the blurbs. Down the back cover of the book, there they were, from Michael Ondaatje (who can do no wrong in my mind), William Boyd (a couple of whose early novels I liked and whose recent Restless was one of my favorite books to listen to over the past few years), David Mitchell (okay, I never made it through Cloud Atlas, but I enjoyed the earlier Ghostwritten), Joshua Ferris (Well, I did find And Then We Came to the End rather tedious, but lots of other folks liked it) and Zadie Smith (I really enjoyed On Beauty, and, you know, she's Zadie Smith.) It was a bit daunting, thinking that all of these bigwigs had said such nice things about Geoff Dyer and the book--what would it say about me if I didn't like it?

Geoff Dyer is known, apparently, for writing non-categorizable books. There are a few novels there, but there are also some cross-genre books such as one titled Yoga for People Who Can't be Bothered to Do It as well as a book about not writing a critical study on DH Lawrence (Out of Sheer Rage), one on photography (The Ongoing Moment) and one on jazz (But Beautiful).

But I felt at a disadvantage from the beginning because the first part of Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi, which is set at the Venice Biennale in 2003, is clearly a riff on Thomas Mann's Death in Venice, which I have not read. So, when I was trying to explain to my friend what the book was about, I had to say something along the lines of, "Well, it's about a jaded journalist named Jeff who goes to the Venice Biennale to write about art and ends up going to lots of parties and drinking a lot of bellinis and snorting a lot of cocaine and having lots of sex with a beautiful American he meets there. Oh, and his last name is Atman, which is a word used to describe the soul or the universal self in Hinduism and Buddhism." "Nothing you have said so far makes me want to read it," she said. I pointed out that it was well written and sometimes quite funny, though the most definite thing I gained from it was the knowledge that, had I had much of a yen to do cocaine before I read the book, it would have been gone by the time I finished.

As for the second part, another journalist, this one unnamed (possibly Jeff, possibly not) takes a last minute travel writing assignment to go to Varanasi and then doesn't leave. (The purest bit of fiction--are there any newspapers left who would fly someone, even a big time writer, business class to Delhi and then on to Varanasi and put them up at the Taj Ganges for 5 nights all for a 1200 word piece on Varanasi? I realize I don't travel in very elevated writing worlds, but in these days of vanishing newspaper travel sections, it seems pretty damn unlikely.) Eventually, he moves from the Taj Ganges to the Ganges View (which, as it so happens, is right next door to Anami Lodge, where I've stayed the last few times I've been in Varanasi) and settles in, losing track of time and his passport and desire itself.

This is taken from the roof of Anami Lodge, and the terrace with plants on it, in the foreground, is the Ganges View.

Geoff Dyer has clearly spent some time in Varanasi, and I really enjoyed his take on it--there are some great (and very accurate) descriptions, and as a journey to a place I know and love, I enjoyed his vision. For someone who hasn't been there, this could read as a travelogue with bits of plot attached. And there are filaments of connections between the Venice and Varanasi sections, images reflected and refracted, so it doesn't feel like you're reading each section in a vacuum.

So, I liked the book. I'm not sorry I read it. But where I find the disconnect is between what I felt about it and what various distinguished critics and writers felt about it. In a glowing New York Times Book Review review, Pico Iyer calls it "profoundly haunting and fearless" and ends the review by saying, "In the weeks since I devoured 'Jeff in Venice,' I don’t think a day has passed without my thinking back to it." In the New Yorker, James Wood (who I think is generally rather cranky) is a fan, giving the book and Dyer a serious and thoughtful review, ending with the comment that it is an "original, affecting, and unexpected book." In the New York Review of Books, it gets two full pages by Tim Parks. I actually enjoyed this review quite a bit, until the last column, when he starts talking about the connections between this book and D.H. Lawrence's travel writing as well as the connections with Thomas Mann again, which got me wondering.

Am I not the ideal audience for this book because I haven't read Thomas Mann? Or because I haven't read more D.H. Lawrence? (I'm not sure having read Women in Love, about which I had very mixed feelings, in grad school counts for too much.) Or because I haven't read more Geoff Dyer? I also wonder, as I often do, if it's a gender thing. (The authors of these glowing reviews are all middle-aged men, as is Geoff Dyer.)

It turns out that the New Yorker did an online book club a couple of months ago where they talked about Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi and Geoff Dyer himself shows up to answer questions. ( The first part starts here.) One of the questioners mentioned having gone back and read the Venice section again after having read the whole book and said that it read completely differently. To that, Geoff Dyer says, "I would love it if people followed your example and read the book if not twice then at least one and half times because, yes, the Venice part does change in the light of the Varanasi part, i.e., it’s not just sex and coke and party banter!" Except, on first read, at least, it kind of is.

On the one hand, I'm slightly curious to see if this is true. On the other hand, I think maybe I have to accept that while this is a Varanasi book that I enjoyed, it's maybe not my Varanasi book. (Maybe my Varanasi book I'll just have to write myself.) There are definitely books I've wanted to start over immediately upon finishing them. Maggie O'Farrell's gorgeous first novel After You'd Gone comes to mind as does one of my favorite Indian novels ever, Amitav Ghosh's The Shadow Lines. But I got to the end of Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi, and my first impulse was not to flip back to the beginning. (Sorry, Geoff Dyer.) I finished and was kind of done except for wondering why I hadn't seemed to appreciate it as much as everyone whose reviews I read. It's almost easier, when reviewers have loved a book that I didn't like at all. (Claire Messud's The Emperor's Children comes to mind here. Fine, it was well written and culturally relevant, but I found it very cold and don't like investing time in a long novel when there are no sympathetic characters at all, no matter how well their unsympatheticness is portrayed.) In this case, I feel like we all read the same book except that they got a layer of meaning out of it that I missed completely.

In any case, I am leaving shortly for a few days on Cape Cod with my charming nieces (and their parents), and the book is staying here, so I guess that answers the re-reading question. At least for now. I'll report back if I spend the next few days thinking about the book and wanting to re-read it. Or, maybe, I'll just find a nice fat mystery and read it on the beach and call it a day.

Where oh where has the summer gone?

The original plan was to title this post "Bye, Bye, July," but, you know, it's now 10 days into August, so even that was belated.

I didn't mean to vanish so thoroughly, but apparently, I needed a bit of a blogging vacation. (Perhaps a delayed effect from all that blogging in May.)

There have been some good distractions, like visitors, necessitating some nice summer cooking, which included this lovely summer vegetable pie (in its pre- and post-baked states):



We ate it with grapenut ice cream, a long time favorite but hard to find. (I used David Lebovitz's vanilla ice ream recipe and added a cup of grapenuts. There was some dissent about this, as Abby and Jon liked the ice cream when it was just finished, while Alex and I preferred it a day later, when the grapenuts had time to soften.)

There have been multiple hikes on Mt. Tom and ice cream at Mt. Tom's. In some kind of ice cream irony, the day after we made the grapenut ice cream, Abby and Jon and I hiked across the Mt. Tom ridge and then went to Mt. Tom's, where, on the specials list was none other than grapenut ice cream, the first time I've seen it available outside of New Hampshire (where it's kind of a local specialty).

Unfortunately, there was also a lingering flu that sucked up a couple of weeks of my break and required obsessive reading of the novels of Noel Streatfeild as well as a re-read of the entire Harry Potter series to get through.

There is also the terrible news that most, if not all, of my tomatoes at the community garden have come down with late blight. They were looking so happy and healthy, even with all the June rain, but the leaves started dying, and then as the tomatoes started to ripen, it was clear that something was wrong. I've already gotten rid of a couple of plants and think I'll have to do the rest. The three plants I planted at home seem okay, but that's little consolation, as there are 17 plants at the community garden. It looks like I'll be buying tomatoes for this year's sauce extravaganza. I should note, though, that I bought all my tomato starts from a local garden center and from an organic stand at the farmers' market, so even avoiding big box garden centers didn't help in my case.

At least it's been a good year for potatoes . . .

If those had been at the community garden, they'd be toast too (metaphorically speaking, of course), but I was told early on that the potato bug was there, so I didn't even try. They seem to like my garden here, though, not that potatoes are known for being fussy. I'm thinking I might try Molly from Orangette's salsa verde for my next batch.

Anyway, I'm off in a bit to Lake Winnepesaukee for a few days, then back briefly, then off to the Cape for a few more days. I hope to have my blogging energy back when I'm back home again. It will still be blueberry season then, and there is a blueberry treat I definitely want to write about. (Suffice it to say, for the moment, that, with only three of us present and after a large and delicious dinner, the 9" x 13" pan was half empty by the time I covered it up.)

Until then, happy August!

Tasty Peas

About the only good thing I have to say about the cool, rainy June that just ended is that my peas were happy. I plant peas every year, and, as it goes with gardens, some years are good years and some years are bad years. For the last few years, some combo of me planting the peas too late and the weather getting hot early has meant that my peas haven't done that well. This year, though, boy are the peas happy. It feels a little bit like a consolation prize for the endless crappy weather. I'm delighted to have peas to put in salad and in orzo and to eat greedily out of the pod while standing barefoot in the garden. But I was also glad to have enough peas so that I could make this dish.

Usually when I eat peas in India, they're in mattar paneer or in a mixed vegetable dish. But this January, in Varanasi, I had dinner at the house of my former study abroad colleague, Bantu. And Bantu's wife Dolly made this pea dish, a special spring dish, she told me, made when peas were in season (as they are in January, which, in northern India, is sort of the equivalent of early spring). As soon as she started telling me about it, and as I watched her cook, I knew I wanted to try to replicate it, so I observed in the kitchen and then made Dolly dictate her recipe to me. It seemed simple enough, with the peas cooked with red onion and bay leaves, and then a paste of green garlic and green onion and ginger mixed in. And then some water added to make it soupy, though by the time we ate it, the water had mostly cooked off.

And the peas were just as delicious as anticipated. We ate them with pooris, which can be heavy, but the peas themselves aren't. (And Indian vegetable dishes, especially the ones you get in restaurants, can be rather oil-laden.) They mostly tasted fresh and green, with a kick from the ginger and the garlic. When I asked Dolly what they were called, she said "Saloni Mattar." I asked what that meant. She paused for a moment, and then said, "Tasty peas."

And so they were.

A few notes. While I took down careful notes of what Dolly did when, I hadn't written down any amounts, so when I made them, I just winged it. It seemed unlikely that the proportions could be skewed so badly that the peas wouldn't taste good. I used a pound of pea pods; when shelled, this was about 2 cups of peas. I used a bunch of organic scallions, 2 bulbs of green garlic and about a 3 inch piece of peeled ginger. I didn't have a mortar and pestle to make the paste, so I used my little mini-chopper instead.

I was actually relieved that I'd taken a photo of the peas cooking, and I was doubly relieved when my peas looked pretty much like Dolly's peas.

Here are Dolly's:

And here are mine:


The other thing I liked about these peas was their versatility. They're an Indian dish, obviously, with Indian spices, but the spicing is not so heavy that you couldn't eat them with non-Indian food. I think they'd be an excellent side dish in general. Alex and I happened to eat them with the early summer orzo I made, which seemed somehow fitting--a meal focused on peas at the height of their all too fleeting season.

And since this post began with a photo of Bantu's very cute daughter Anandi, it seems only fitting that I end it with a photo of his equally cute son (whose name, I'm embarrassed to say, I'm not sure how to spell). He was much less interested in posing with the peas and much more interested in riding his little bike around the flat wearing his sunglasses:

Saloni Mattar
(Tasty Peas)

1 medium red onion, diced
1 tbsp. vegetable oil (can increase if needed)
3-4 bay leaves
2 cups fresh peas, shelled
1 3 inch knob fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
2 heads green garlic (or a few cloves of regular garlic), minced
1 bunch green onions, organic if possible, chopped
green chile (optional)
dash of cinnamon
1/2 tsp. turmeric powder
salt and black pepper to taste

1. Fry onion in oil with bay leaves until soft.
2. While onions are cooking, mix together in mortar and pestle or food processor the green garlic, green onions and ginger, and green chile, if using. Grind into a paste.
3. Add peas to the onion.
4. When peas are half cooked, add the ginger-onion-garlic paste.
   
5. Continue to cook, adding the cinnamon, turmeric and salt.
6. Add water to just cover and let cook down.
7. The peas should be a little bit soupy when you serve them, but you should cook most of the water off.

Serves 2-3, recipe easily increased.

Early Summer Orzo

I wish I had a great story behind this dish since I love it so much. But in truth, it evolved over several years, and I can't really pinpoint its beginning. I do remember a meal at which there was a dish of summer squash with almonds and there was an orzo salad, and when I came home, having the recipe for neither, I decided to combine them.

In any case, what I ended up with has become one of my favorite summer dishes. It's not that you couldn't make it well at other times of the year; it's just that it's especially good during that sweet spot of early summer when there are fresh peas and corn on the cob and the first zucchini that have not yet reached baseball bat proportions.

There is a certain amount of prep work involved in this, between shelling the peas and husking the corn and dicing the rest of the vegetables, but it's totally worth it. (Fortunately, I'm listening to the new PD James mystery--The Private Patient--on my iPod, which helped keep dicing tedium at bay.) And the recipe is flexible enough to accommodate a range of vegetables, though stay away from anything like a tomato that would fall apart--this is a dish whose pleasure derives from tiny, intact pieces of tasty things all melded together. I happen to like it with a combination of yellow and green vegetables (I make an exception for the red onion). There are two keys--one is that all the vegetables should be approximately the same size. (That is, the size of a pea or a kernel of corn.) And you have to add the orzo to the vegetables rather than the other way around. This isn't orzo with vegetables--the orzo is integrated into the vegetables so that it's a part of the whole rather than the base.

My basic routine is this. Dice the red onion and start to cook in some olive oil. Throw in some minced garlic, if you like. Once it starts to soften, add the diced zucchini or summer squash. (For my latest batch, I used one of each.) Husk the corn and cut off the kernels, then add those to the other vegetables. Add the peas last. In the meantime, cook the orzo. (Because orzo is so small, it's deceptive how much you need. The last time I made it, I used half a box which was way too much--that turned out to be enough for 1 small batch and 1 large batch, with some leftover. The flip side is that it's just as easy to add leftover orzo as fresh. Just make sure you add it while the vegetables are still in the pan so it heats up. When I'm using just-cooked orzo, I mix it in the serving bowl.) If you like, you can also add some toasted pine nuts or slivered almonds. I also add any fresh herbs I have around--basil definitely works, as do chives. When the vegetables are tender but not mushy (and the peas still bright green) and the orzo is drained, slowly begin to add the orzo to the vegetables. The orzo should flesh out the vegetables but not overwhelm it. Here's my pan of vegetables:

And here's the pan of vegetables with the orzo added:


Sprinkle with some grated Parmesan, and dinner is ready. Don't hesitate to make a lot because it is excellent re-heated for lunch.

Because of the recipe's flexibility, it's hard to pin down exactly what you need. I didn't measure my peas, for example and just used all the peas I'd picked from the garden. The orzo would have been just as good with more peas and still fine with fewer peas. Exact amounts are less important here than with other dishes. You're just looking for a certain balance and no one thing or flavor dominating. I'm including these quantities to use as a guide and adapt at will.

Early Summer Orzo

1 medium red onion, diced
1-2 cloves garlic, minced (optional)
2 small zucchini or summer squash, diced
3 ears of fresh corn, husked and the corn cut off the cob
1 - 1 1/2 cups fresh shell peas, removed from the pod
1 tbsp. olive oil
1/4 - 1/3 cup pine nuts or slivered almonds (or a combo of both), toasted
1 cup cooked orzo (very approximate--see above)
fresh herbs (basil, parsley, chives, etc), to taste, chopped finely
grated Parmesan cheese, to taste
salt and pepper, to taste

1. Saute red onion in olive oil until soft.
2. Add diced squash; cook until it begins to shrink and soften
3. Add corn kernels, cook for several minutes
4. Add peas
5. Add pine nuts/almonds
   
6. Add herbs
   
7. Remove from heat and begin to add orzo, a few tablespoons at a time until integrated. It is better to have not quite enough orzo than too much.
   
8. Season with salt and pepper to taste
9. Serve with freshly grated Parmesan

Serves 4, approximately, depending on how hungry you are and what else is being served.

Old Favorites: Southwest Salad with Black Beans and Corn

There was a time that I cooked many of my meals from Mollie Katzen's third cookbook, Still Life with Menu. That time was long ago, it's true, and vegetarian cookbooks have multiplied exponentially since then, but I still have a soft spot for Mollie. The spinach soup in the original Moosewood, for example, remains my standard spinach soup, and the quiche formula in The Enchanted Broccoli Forest helped me reacquaint myself with quiche proportions after many years of not making them.

I have even more favorites, all these years later, from Still Life with Menu--the summer fruit crumble, the challah, the Mediterranean lentil salad and this black bean and corn salad, to name a few. The crumble I make frequently, of course, but the rest not so much, and after having made this black bean salad recently, I wonder why. I certainly never hesitated before--the page is splattered and well-used, but that could also be because the recipe opposite is for chocolate chip mint cookies, which I haven't made in years but now have a craving for. (Mollie is right when she says they're worth buying a bottle of peppermint extract for.)


The other night, I became somewhat overambitious when cooking for a work party--there was ginger ice cream (truly fabulous) and homemade ginger snaps to crumble into the ice cream (making it even more fabulous), and then there were chocolate-coconut macaroons to use up all those egg whites leftover from the ice cream (which required 5 egg yolks in addition to the 2 cups of half and half and one cup of heavy cream--I told you it was fabulous). But in the midst of my sweet-making frenzy, I had the sense to make a batch of this salad.

Over the years I've made many different variations of this, but there was something satisfying about returning to the original after all these years. I soaked the beans the night before I made it and used fresh corn. (I wouldn't hesitate about this later in the summer, but it's on the early end of corn season now.) I skipped frying the tortillas, figuring that there would chips for scooping at the party, but otherwise, I followed Mollie's instructions and suddenly remembered why this was one of my standard pot luck dishes for years--It's savory and tasty and satisfying and makes excellent leftovers. It was good enough that I'm planning to re-visit Still Life With Menu and see what other gems I may have forgotten about. In the meantime, even though the ice cream and macaroons are long gone, I'm glad that there's a tiny bit of Southwest Salad left in the fridge, waiting for the evening I come home starving and need something filling and delicious and already made. I won't wait nearly so long to make it again.

Southwest Salad
with Black Beans and Corn

From Mollie Katzen's Still Life with Menu

2 cups dried black beans
2 cups cooked corn
2 to 3 medium-sized cloves garlic, finely minced
A heaping 1/2 cup well-minced red onion (I just used one small red onion.)
1 medium-sized red bell pepper, minced
1 medium-sized carrot, minced (optional)
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 - 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil (plus an optional 1 to 2 tablespoons for the tortillas) (I used the lesser amount and didn't miss the rest.)
1/2 cup fresh lime juice (3 to 4 limes)
2 to 3 teaspoons whole cumin seeds
1/2 cup minced fresh cilantro
1/2 cup minced fresh parsley
2 teaspoon crushed red pepper(adjust this to your taste)
A moderate amount of freshly ground black pepper
3 to 4 corn tortillas (optional)

Soak the beans for at least 4 hours, but preferably overnight. Drain off any excess soaking water, place the soaked beans in a soup pot, and cover with fresh water. Bring just to a boil, then cover and turn the heat way down. Cook at a very slow simmer—with no agitation in the water—until the beans are tender. This should take 1-1/4 to 1-1/2 hours. Check intermittently to be sure there is enough water, and add more if necessary. When the beans are cooked, drain them well. Then rinse them thoroughly in cold water, and drain them well again.

In a large bowl, combine beans, cooked corn, minced garlic, red onion, bell pepper, optional carrot, salt, 1/2 cup olive oil, and lime juice.

Roast the whole cumin seeds, either in a cast-iron skillet over medium heat, stirring for several minutes, or very carefully in a toaster oven. Add the toasted seeds to the salad, along with the cilantro, parsley, basil, and red and black pepper, and mix thoroughly but gently.

Lightly brush both sides of each tortilla with olive oil, and cut the tortillas into strips approximately 1/4 inch wide and 1-1/2 inches long. Cook the strips slightly by toasting them in an oven (350 degrees) or a toaster oven for only about 2 minutes, or in a heavy skillet over medium heat for 2 to 3 minutes. Ideally, they should be partly crispy and partly chewy. Stir these into the salad shortly before serving, or, if you prefer, scatter them on top as a garnish.

Modern Spice Virtual Dinner Party: Pan-fried Zucchini and Yellow Squash with Cumin

Early on in May, I wrote about the lovely chickpea crepe recipe from Monica Bhide's new cookbook, Modern Spice. Now, I'm happy to have another opportunity to talk about another one of Monica's recipes.

Today is the Modern Spice Virtual Dinner Party, in which 25 bloggers from the around the world cooked dishes from Modern Spice, all of which are posted on Monica's website, A Life of Spice. (Just looking at the list and all the photos makes me hungry.)

My contribution was the Pan-fried Zucchini and Yellow Squash with Cumin:


What I liked about this was that it reminded me that a quick side dish can still have a lot of zip to it. This recipe is easy, tasty and adaptable, not to mention healthy. I think it would be lovely with fish or as part of a larger vegetarian meal. Now that I've made it once according to the recipe, I'm looking forward to playing with it--trying it with mustard seeds, for example, or adding some onion and garlic. It's lovely as is, though, and a great way to use summer vegetables (especially if you were overenthusiastic in your zucchini planting).

Pan-Fried Zucchini and Yellow Squash with Cumin

Monica writes, "This has got to be one of my favorite Monday night recipes, because it’s so simple and quick. You can vary the taste by changing the spice from cumin to coriander or mustard seeds. I don’t peel the zucchini but you can if you prefer."

Serves 4
Prep/Cook time: 15 minutes

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 1⁄2 teaspoons cumin seeds
1 large zucchini, diced
1 small yellow squash, diced
1⁄2 organic red bell pepper, seeded and diced
1⁄2 teaspoon ground turmeric
1⁄2 teaspoon red chile flakes
Table salt
1⁄2 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
Fresh cilantro leaves for garnish

1. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the cumin seeds. When the seeds begin to sizzle, add the zucchini, squash, and bell pepper.
2. Fry the vegetables over high heat until they soften and begin to brown, 8 to 9 minutes.
3. Add the turmeric and chile flakes and cook for another minute, until the spices are well mixed with the vegetables. Stir in salt to taste.
4. Serve hot, sprinkled with lemon juice and garnished with cilantro.

Strawberry Ice Cream Love

For the first time in many years, I'm in possession of a functioning ice cream maker. My friend Annie gave me a little Donvier ice cream maker for my birthday while I was in graduate school--a present she was justifiably pleased with herself for thinking of. (For months before my birthday, she would say, at random moments, "I know what I'm getting you for your birthday," and then laugh. Only when it arrived did I understand.) I made countless batches of ice cream in the Donvier (some with my friend Sarah Hart, who now has become an expert in all things sweet and especially chocolatey. If you're ever in Portland, OR, don't miss her store, Alma Chocolate. Annie (again wisely) sent me some of Sarah's sweets for my birthday a few years ago, and I'm still thinking of the Ginger Almond Toffee.)

Eventually, though, the part of the Donvier that was supposed to stay frozen stopped freezing, and the possibility of homemade ice cream went away. I'm not sure why it took me so long to realize that KitchenAid made an ice cream maker attachment for its mixer. I've had a KitchenAid mixer for 6 or 7 years now--why didn't I know that sooner? In any case, I know it now, and last week, my ice cream maker attachment arrived.

I didn't have to debate what my inaugural batch of ice cream would be. It so happens that, nearly every night, Alex says, at some point, "I want some strawberry ice cream." And it also so happens that he has a June birthday. Since I never get him strawberry ice cream when he has his nightly ice cream cravings, I thought it was the least I could do for his birthday. I started looking up ice cream recipes online and immediately found references to David Lebovitz's book The Perfect Scoop. It turned out that the Northampton library had it on the shelves, so I went to fetch it with dispatch. What a book. Immediately, I found many, many ice cream flavors I wanted to try. (And it turns out that David Lebovitz's website is even more tempting since it has recipes for baked goods as well.)

But for Alex's birthday, strawberry it was. I made one adaptation and made the strawberry-sour cream ice cream with yogurt instead, which, I believe, makes it strawberry yogurt ice cream. Of course, I will have to try it with sour cream for comparison's sake, but I don't think the yogurt version was lacking anything.

My garden is producing small numbers of lovely strawberries these days (when the birds and/or slugs don't get to them first), but I needed a pound for this recipe, so I bought a quart of local berries. The first step is to slice them and mix with sugar and a bit of alcohol.

Then add the yogurt or sour cream and then the heavy cream:

Then whir it up in the blender (I used my immersion blender right in the bowl) until it looks like a most delectable strawberry ice cream shake:

After that chills for an hour in the fridge, you let the ice cream maker do its thing. The results are sure to please even the most ardent strawberry ice cream fan:


As for me, I'm pondering the flavor possibilities for Fridays' work picnic. Ginger? Ginger with ginger snaps? Coconut? The possibilities are many, and I look forward to contemplating them all. I do think it's fortunate that the freezer bowl requires 18 hours in the freezer between batches. Otherwise, it would be ice cream all the time here, which, while delicious, might also be dangerous. There's a long summer ahead of us, and plenty of time for ice cream.

Strawberry Yogurt Ice Cream
adapted from David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop

(Makes about 1 1/4 quarts)

1lb fresh strawberries, rinsed and hulled
3/4 cup sugar
1tbs vodka or kirsch (I used Absolut Citron, which was all I had)
1 cup whole milk yogurt
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 tsp fresh squeezed lemon juice

1. Slice strawberries and toss in a bowl with sugar and vodka, stirring until sugar begins to dissolve. Cover and let stand at room temperature for 1 hour, stirring every so often.

2. Pulse the strawberries and their liquid with sour cream, heavy cream, and lemon juice in a blender or food processor until almost smooth but still slightly chunky.

3. Refrigerate for 1 hour, then freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.