By Julia DeCaire, 6/25/07       

My mom and I spent this past weekend at my grandparents’ beautiful home in Alabama. I will begin by saying that overall it was a pleasant visit: sleeping in, eating, blueberry preparation, enjoying nature, eating, hanging with family, blueberry preparation, eating, watching movies and eating. 

Anyway, yesterday (Sunday) my mom and I spent the majority of the day packing freshly picked blueberries in zip lock baggies so that we could safely bring them home with us. I brought back three gallons and my mom brought 10 gallons back (good luck with that, mom). You are probably wondering how divvying up blueberries, especially post-stem blueberries into zip lock freezer bags could take an entire afternoon. Well, keep thinking about that and let me know when you figure it out because I have no flipping clue, but it did! (editor: the berries needed to be checked because there were still stems on about one in one hundred ... which is a lot of stems to remove since there are about 100,000,000 berries in 13 gallons.)

After hours and hours of blueberry mumbo-jumbo, the final berry was packed all safe and sound. Earlier in the week my grandmamma had suggested that my mom and I make homemade ice cream during our visit. She has a nice machine, ice cream mix and other fixing’s, so we had planned on making homemade ice cream. Note: we did not know that we would be so worn out after the blueberry business; nevertheless, we proceeded in making the ice-cream (I’m still not quite sure why, I guess I just hate breaking plans). 

After cutting up fresh strawberries and pieces of Dove chocolate as add-ins, we spent a good amount of time and energy deciphered the “simple” instructions. I tried to make it fun in two ways: Attempt 1) “Let’s pretend that we are on a cooking show.” This game didn’t last long because the complicated and contradictory directions were not allowing us to portray the “simple and smooth” calm that a good cooking shows always does. Plus, the cabinets were not filled with magically appearing ice cream that was three steps further in the process.



Attempt number 2) “Let’s pretend that we are pioneers”. This didn’t happen frankly because we forgot. I think that I forgot because I was intoxicated by the questionable stench coming from the ice-cream mix powder (this should have been a hint that something wasn’t right). 

Okay, so at this point we realize that this probably is not going to be fun, but let’s get it over with and hopefully... “This will be the best ice cream that we have ever tasted.” (Even better than the 3 gallons of Häagen-Dazs in the freezer). 

Okay, so thankfully my mom just received her bachelor’s degree in rocket science because we finally get everything put together and filled the machine with ice and rock salt. I was a bit concerned because the instructions spoke frequently of adding more salt, but also stated that adding too much salt would ruin the ice-cream…great. 



Next, we turn on the machine (thank Holy God it wasn’t a hand crank machine!) AHHH!! What the bleep is that sound? A dentist’s drill amplified by 2,600. Fortunately, my grandmamma needs hearing aids to really hear (which she removes before naps) and my granddaddy sleeps hooked up to a not-so-quiet breathing machine because he has sleep apnea (I just realized that these circumstances are really quite situationally fortunate); therefore, they continued napping as my mom and I slaved over homemade ice-Scream.

At this point we realize that the project needs to be taken outside. This way not only will we avoid disturbing grandmamma and granddaddy, but also the people on the other side of the lake will know what we are up to. 

Now that the machine is doing its business, the end is in sight and our part is basically done. For thirty minutes we went inside and escaped the blaring churning of the machine. 

The clock reads 6:30. Yay, ice-cream time! “Come on mom let’s go!” 

At this point I am totally stoked. You know it’s like that feeling when you are lifting the upside-down, sand-filled bucket to form a tower of the sandcastle…yeah that one. 

Lid's off and it looks pretty good - a little too yellow, but the consistency is good. As we work to completely remove the lid, while keeping out the ice and salt, my mom takes a taste with a long spoon. (The moment we’ve all been waiting for!) 

Immediately her face distorts with that “yuk, who just pooped their pants!” face. “Eww this is…horrible!” she exclaims. 
Saddened and dumbfounded, I softly ask, “Wait, it isn’t the best ice cream that you have ever tasted?” 
“Here you try”…so I did. 
Not only was this ice cream hurry-up-and-swallow-it bad, it was gag-me, get- this-disgusting-slop-immediately-out-of-my-mouth, spit-it-up (which I did) disgusting. 

Although I am sure that deep down we were both annoyed that we had spent some of our last vacation hours making this retched concoction, it was pretty darn funny that we ended up being so far off the mark. We did not reach our goal of making “The best ice cream that we have ever tasted”. In fact, we both agree that last night we made the absolute worst ice cream that we (or perhaps anyone) have (has) ever tasted. 

The End 

FAQ's 

1. Wait Julia, I thought that you don’t like blueberries. What’s up with that?

Correct, I did not like blueberries until yesterday, which is convenient because I currently have three gallons in my freezer.

2. Why didn’t you just eat the Häagen-Dazs? 

You should have suggested that about…umm…about 26 hours ago, but thanks anyways. 

3. What went wrong?!?

I must mention that water was the only ingredient that the mixed required, so I’m pretty darn sure that it had nothing to do with us. Additionally after a little bit of investigation at dinner, we discovered that the mix was not one, not two, but SEVEN years expired. 

Therefore, not only did we find out that it was “Best used by 04/00” they can also now add “Absolutely worst if used by 06/07” to the packaging. 

Sorry grandmamma, not all old things are better the older that they get.

4. Are you sure that it wasn’t just you and your mom that would find the taste so incredibly repulsive?

In a word, “yes”. Proof being, my grandmamma, one of the, if not the absolute least picky eater on the face of the earth, immediately spit out the bite that she was offered after even saying, “you think that is all that I am going to want?” like she was sure that she would want more. I don’t think so grandma! (editor: flavor best described as Vomit Volcano)

5. What happened to your tasty strawberry and chocolate mix-ins?

Luckily, we discovered the beast before sacrificing the delicious mix-ins. As far as I know they are sitting in my grandparents’ fridge if you have any ideas as to what to do with them.

6. Do you think that you will ever make homemade ice cream again? 

Probably, I mean I still have a lot of life to live and I just refuse to have my one and only ice cream making experience be so terrible, however I will definitely not be bagging almost 15 gallons of blueberries beforehand - and will also have someone that knows what they are doing nearby. 

7. But you said, never again…?
shut up.