salty

The milkshakes of the last missive reminded me so much of homemade ice cream. It seems that the Spice and I have had at least one type of ice cream churn the whole time we have been married. In the early years it was the hand cranked type and in later years, up until today, we have had electric churns. We still make ice cream several times a year, usually timed with some holiday, a family get-together or sometimes just when we have company for supper. The permanent flavor was and still is vanilla and if we happen to be feeling froggy, we might even turn out some banana or peach.

We have a recipe for vanilla ice cream that is yellowed with age and a bit stained with the occasional ingredient spot. If we want another flavor we still use the same instructions and just add the fruit we want. The electric churns usually take about 30 – 45 minutes to turn out the wonderful, cold and creamy dessert. It is started when guests first arrive and normally out in the garage because of the noise – by the time we finish eating the meal, the ice cream is ready.

This reminds me of an ice cream story of long ago – ages past when I still had a small amount of hair. Back when we were a young married couple, we used to gather on the weekends with a few other couples. The purpose of the gatherings was for a meal together, play board games, laugh and talk and in the summer they usually included ice cream. It was at one of these gatherings that the “ice cream incident” occurred.

Our meal of the evening had been enjoyed and brought to a successful conclusion. The ladies were in the living room of our guest’s house and the guys were out back preparing the ice cream for dessert. At the time, the churns were the hand-turned type and the guys took turns at the turning thereof. It was not unusual for the inner container that held the ice cream ingredients to have a few rust spots on the outside of it because it is turned in brine ice water which is very corrosive and such was the case with one of the churns – we had two that evening.

We noticed that one of the churns finished freezing its contents quicker than the other and was even running over into the brine that was in the outer container. We opened it up and the ice cream was a beautiful sight to behold – but then someone happened to taste it. It would seem that one of the rust spots had worn through and the brine had gotten into and mixed with the ingredients and the taste was almost pure salt. The girls were in blissful ignorance concerning this catastrophe, so as guys will sometimes do, we started thinking about how we could at least get a laugh out of the incident – so it would not be a total loss.

My Spice was well known by the group to have a great love for salt on her food, so it was determined that a bowl of this stuff would go to her. A large bowlful was prepared and we trouped in to bring it to her. One of the guys handed it to her and made a big deal about how we were giving her the honor of the very first bowl. She smiled her pleasure until she tasted the salt saturated product. Needless to say, this was a bit too salty for her and she really did not appreciate us thinking of her in that way – and mentioned this fact to us in no uncertain terms. The guys almost fell out laughing, as did the girls when they found out what happened, even the Spice when she got over the taste shock, but probably not quite as much as the others.

Fortunately we had one good churn of ice cream to sate our appetites for the frozen dessert. This incident happened over 40 years ago and the memory is still good and I smile when I bring those moments back. Even in memories we have a choice, we can destroy our own happiness with the bad ones, or ask God to forgive our past, then forgive ourselves and choose to remember the joyous and good parts of life. ec