Jan
Dogs and ice cream are great and all, but unfortunately they don’t pay the bills. Or satisfy all of my creative aspirations… So I work. And I get busy… And I don’t have the time to deal with wordpress updating and backing up and things… Next thing I know my blog has disappeared.
I’m going to slowly but surely get this thing back on its feet over the next few weeks. Then hopefully I can start telling you about all of the exciting adventures Spider & the ice cream maker and I have been having.
Oh, and there’s a new member of the team… I got a pasta maker for Christmas!

A few weeks ago the parents flew in to Michigan, my sister flew in from Oregon, and we all piled into a car to head up the California coast. Destination: sunny Cambria.



Spider had a rough weekend. And we didn’t get much sleep Thursday or Friday nights.
So we loaded Spider into the car to take him to an after-hours clinic. But as he got in the car, his shaking stopped. He was back to normal, and he snatched up his treat happily. The change? The neighbors had stopped setting off fireworks.
I baked the rhubarb with egg yolks, sugar, cream and milk until the top was firm and a little golden: pie filling sans flour. I cooled, blended, strained, then diluted the concentrated rhubarb custard with more cream/milk. The color is green-ish (the rhubarb was young), and I was tempted to add some food coloring, but I realized my raspberry swirl would be less dramatic if the ice cream were pink. Since the meringue topping is essential to the pie, I made a soft meringue, cooked it in the oven until soft, firm and browned, and cooled it to add to the churned ice cream. I discovered after dropping the first piece in that it would disinigrate into the cream in the churning ice cream maker, so i folded the meringue bits into the cream as I transfered from the ice cream maker.
Recipe: Grandma W’s Rhubarb Pie Ice Cream
I picked up raspberries and white peaches at Trader Joe’s. I had reached for the regular white peaches, when I saw they had organic white peaches, and they were the same price. I usually opt for organic, but these didn’t pass the smell test… They didn’t have much smell, and the non-organic peaches were wafting through the plastic containers. So I bought a package of each.
I peeled the peaches, blended them with raspberries and the sugar, and then stirred in Grand Marnier and champagne. The original recipe calls for 1/4 cup of Grand Marnier, but I wanted the sparkle of the champagne to add a little bite. I was afraid the sorbet would be too soft if I added too much booze, so I filled the 1/4 cup up about a third of the way with the Marnier, then overflowed the champagne into the bowl. We tasted, thought it could use a little more bite, and poured a bit more champagne in.
Sparkling Peach & Raspberry Sorbet









After J & I had our epic journeys through Utah (road trip pt
offered rhubarb. Jared had a wild berry pie with lemon crust, and grandpa had his classic lemon meringue. Man that meringue was piled high.
Visiting Iowa was so refreshing. It was wonderful to see my loving family, and the strangers are friendly and happy to talk as well.
Spider got along okay with Daisy. He did his annoying “I’m gonna bark at you cause I’m a bully” schtick. Not cool, Spider, not cool. The other night Spider decided to pick on a three-legged blind dog, half his size, who hangs out down the street. It doesn’t seem malicious (we had some dog socialization lessons I need to write-up, and we confirmed he’s not malicious, just rude), but it’s obnoxious. It would be great to expose him to more dogs in controlled environments so he could figure out how to effectively convince doggy-pals to play. We’ll have to work on that in LA.
My parents came for the last few days of the trip along with the infamous
Stella sometimes wears a life jacket when she swims, so she can stay in the water longer. She likes to chase my dad while he windsurfs, but she can’t really keep up so after a few hundred feet she’ll turn back to shore. The life jacket gives my mom peace of mind while she paddles around. My parents also like to exercise Stella by taking her kayaking in lakes near their house in Michigan. Getting some water exercise certainly breaks the daily walk routine, especially during the summer when the woods are humid and thick with mosquitos.
Spider and Stella did well together. If Spider got too barky or obnoxious, Stella put him in his place. By the end of the visit, Stella (who is a very dominant dog) had established dominance over Spider, and was standing with her head over Spider’s shoulders and sniffing Spider while he lay on his back. I was proud to see Spider submit to a fine mistress.