Cocaine may be a hell of a drug, but Cookies n' Creme, it's a hell of an ice cream

Woke up, checked to make sure B wasn't giving birth, then took off to Coney Island. There was a half-marathon my friend E was running in, so I was able to fly down Ocean Parkway without any cross traffic. After running 13.1 miles in the heat and humidity, all that E and her friend wanted to do was scarf hotdogs, so scarf we did at Nathan's.

I just wasn't hungry this morning, but the cherry sorbet I labored on was....good, not great, I think I went too far on the cherry brandy, which prevented the ices from setting up too firm and gave a very mild booze tickle to the nose. On the other hand, it's VERY cherry-like in a real cherry way, and where it didn't crystallize, it's so smoooove. Next time, less kirschwasser and more gelatine.

I explored further into frozen deserts today. Yesterday, I made cream anglais, the base for really solid vanilla ice cream. Pint of whole milk, pint of heavy cream, cup of sugar, 2 scraped out vanilla beans, husks and all, into the pot, brought to a simmer. The second it hit simmer, I tempered a little bit of it into 12 whisked egg yolks, then tempered the yolks into the dairy -- if you just dumped in the yolks, instant scrambled eggs. Kept whisking until it thickened, then immediately through a meal mesh strainer into an ice bath. Refrigerated over night. This in itself is an intense sauce that can be poured over pastry, bread pudding, cakes, etc, but it's real hero status is the "French vanilla" ice cream it makes when ya churn it.

But I didn't want to be so....vanilla, so yesterday I asked her what ice cream flavor she desired. She peeped, not totally proud of herself, "Cookies n' creme!" Ugh, what a low rent flavor! I guessed it was just vanilla ice cream with an oreo mix-in, so no biggie, better to keep the old lady happy then be an ice cream snob.

I got a pack of Newman-Os from the supermarket, which I never had before. They pretty much look and taste exactly like oreos, except they don't leave a fatty film in your mouth and don't give you the chemical tickle at the back of your throat. As the ice cream was churning, I pulsed the majority of the cookies in the food processor to get a nice mix of powder, small bits and medium bits. One thing of note: the vanilla 'creme' all but disappeared, powdered and bonded to the darker chocolaty bits. Weird.

So I poured the cookies into the vanilla base a few moments before it was ready to stop, and once fully incorporated, shovelled it into a container and into the freezer to set. Then I tasted the remains of the dasher and barrel....

Oh my. This is interesting. Not what I expected. This is actually really, really.....good. The 'creme' of the cookies was powdered, and then kind of decided to sing bass-harmony with the pure vanilla of the ice cream....the cookies gave a nice interesting crunch and texture to the otherwise silky ice cream, but rather than being like sand, added a nice simple cocoa note that's kind of like, ummm, a castrato singing high above the vanilla harmony. The cookies also raised the sweetness and saltiness level of the affair, making it so different than what it was before. I guess that's really are there is to it, just blenderize and mix in cookies. I gotta try this with ginger snaps, with cinnamon graham crackers, with all-chocolate Newman-Os in my special 3-Deep-Chocolate ice cream (with cocoa, milk chocolate, dark chocolate and a dash of espresso grinds), ohhh, the mind is racing. I'm writing this in the afternoon while B is asleep, I can't wait to feed her some of this, she's gonna shout, "BAMALAMA!"

Hours later: Yep, she shouted bamalama.

AM SNACK: 8:30am, snippet of cherry sorbet
BRUNCH: 11:15am, 2 hotdogs with kraut and onion, a small amount of cheese fries, 1 beer, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

BIKE WATERING: 1pmish, 24 oz of water

PM SNACK: 2:15pm, cherry sorbet, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 3:30pm, asparagus risotto, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Oh my. This is a dish that despite the snobs that say risotto is no good if it's not just cooked, it actually tastes better the day after. More moisture gets into the grains, the starchy stocky creamy sauce gets more so, the flavors just mellow into each other, and it doesn't hurt that after last night's dinner, I hit it up with more salt to make it beg to be eaten.

PM SNACK: 4pm, 6 or so Newman-O cookies, scrapings of cookies n' creme ice cream out of the dasher barrel, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 9pm, vegan singapore mai fun, a summer roll, a few dumplings, a scoop of cookies n' creme, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Ordered in food with the bulbous B.