ice cream part two more chickens

since the first round of delicious ice cream experiments, we've made a basil and mint, with the former from mom's window and the latter from cj's roof. it was divine, albeit slightly eggy. (we used 8 yolks. like crazy people.) also worthy of mention: we didn't use any kind of mint oil in this one, just the leaves, and the basil flavor came through a lot more strongly than the mint.

dark and stormy: cubed candied ginger, chopped into even smaller pieces and soaked overnight in gosling's black seal dark rum. the batter was made with a big chunk of fresh ginger, smashed (next time i think we'll cut it up) and a couple tablespoons of lime zest. we tossed the rum-soaked candied ginger into the batter at the tail-end of the conversion process (two minutes before the mixing was done). the result was beautiful. just enough rum flavor in the ginger, and the little flecks of lime zest made it look pretty.

we also made mint cookie, using the peppermint oil again and crumbling up some hint o' mint newman o's to stir in at the last minute. omfg. best one yet?

somehow, i've only put on about 5 pounds. we're going to have to start making sorbet.

. . . .

here are a couple of new tiny chickens. perhaps handlebars will trade me one for a print..?

cock, acrylic on canvas. 6" x 6"


hen, acrylic on canvas. 4" x 6"

food that comes with a warning label? yes, please.

today i had lunch in curry hill with cj; shopping for spices afterward we happened upon a pepper we couldn't resist.

to put things in perspective, a habañero pepper has a rating of about 300,000 scoville units. according to one source, US grade pepper spray weighs in at 2 million scoville units. so the "ghost chile" is about three times as hot as a habañero, and half as hot as... pepper spray.

cj also talked me into buying something called s'chug. oh my, is it good. also spicy. but not bhut jolokia spicy.

(i'm a little scared, actually. but in a good way.)