Photo: Rudolph Janu
I wish I could tell you that I took this picture. I wish I could say that I went to bed last night as regular old Kate Cooks the Books and woke up possessed of super-human photography skills. But I cannot lie to you, Dear Readers. I did not.
This is the work of a professional. A professional named Rudy Janu who happens to be my mother’s significant other and part of our family. (You should see my family snapshots. The Kennedys didn’t have such beautiful pictures of themselves). Obviously, an extremely talented artist, shown at the Art Institute of Chicago in the auspicious year of 1962.
The ice cream, as you might deduce, is from the “Chill” chapter of Ruhlman’s Twenty. A deceptively simple title in that “chill” has many applications in cooking and I’ll bet you never thought of most them. At the most basic and obvious level it is the opposite of heat and you can apply “chill” be either stopping the heat or actively introducing some cold. Why would you do this? For one thing it allows you to play restaurant – one of my favorite things! Restaurants, Ruhlman says, “exist by serving leftovers;” that is, they pre- or par-cook food ahead of time and finish it when you waltz in and order it. (What, you thought a bunch of chefs were just standing around biting their nails waiting to hear what you were in the mood for so they could spring into action and make it from scratch? Grow up.)
Ruhlman also talks about freezing foods in this chapter including what you can and should freeze and how (keep the air out as best you can, either with a double layer of cling wrap and then a zipper bag, or, ideally, with a vacuum sealer).
I made this ice cream as a Mother’s Day gift to my mom so I only got to taste bits of it as I scraped it out of the ice cream maker into the gift container. Because, you know, quality control.
And wow, was it good. Mom and Rudy confirmed as much: this is some seriously good ice cream.
The recipe is on page 332 of Ruhlman’s Twenty, and right here, courtesy of NPR.
