Ice Cream

If you were to ask Bryan Soronson, as I did recently, "How's Baltimore doing?" he would respond not by citing per-capita income or population characteristics. Instead, he would talk about how the metropolis handles the crucial cream-to-fuit ratio in its frozen desserts. Soronson, an administrator of the department of neurology at the University of Maryland Medical Center in downtown Baltimore, is an ice-cream aficionado. For him, the quality of life in a community is directly liked to the quality of its home-made frozen desserts.

Ice, salt and rigorous shaking can turn an ounce of nondairy creamer into a frozen treat. "It's simple, sweet and a little silly," Garrett Seidman, a junior at the Hannah More School in Reisterstown, said as he sampled a dab of ice-solid French vanilla cream. "But I like it. " Ice cream making was among the demonstrations during the second annual Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) Fair, held last week at the private school for children with autism and other emotional and learning disabilities.

In the years before air conditioning could be taken for granted, ice cream was not just a tasty treat. In the sultry South, where I grew up, it was a cold tasty treat, and thus could be classified as more a necessity than a luxury. Small towns in Alabama weren't blessed with many ice-cream trucks - at least our street wasn't. But my brothers and I, along with an abundance of nearby cousins, had something even better: a hand-cranked ice-cream maker and Aunt Billie, who happily chaired the family ice-cream committee.

Families (and their four-legged friends) looking for Easter fun should check out the Baltimore Humane Society's Easter Eggstravaganza this Saturday, April 7, from noon until 3 p.m. Both kids and pets are invited to this Easter celebration. Parents can snap photos of their children and beloved pets with the Easter Bunny. Kids can hunt for eggs and play the I Spy Cat Detective game. There be a bake sale for humans, and your furry friends can enjoy ice cream from Tiki's Playhouse Doggie Ice-Cream Truck, Maryland's first ice cream truck for canines.

Few summer pleasures compare to savoring just-made ice cream. Whether it's fine American ice cream, French glace or Italian gelato, the basic mixture is the same. It's a cooked sweet custard of milk or cream and egg yolks called creme anglaise or English cream, which is spiked with various flavorings. To make it, you need an ice-cream machine that stirs the custard as it freezes. This inhibits the formation of ice crystals that can mar silky smoothness. Equally important is patience.

You can fiddle with the rock salt. You can skimp on the sugar. But never, ever dally with the --er.That is a lesson I learned the other day when I made ice cream at home. The --er is the part of the ice-cream maker that is suspended in the middle of the canister of sweetened cream.The dasher's mission is to make sure all the liquid mix changes into frozen cream. It does this by scraping the freezing ice-cream mix from the canister walls and pushing it toward the center. This action, in turn, pushes the pieces of unfrozen mix to where the cold is, the canister walls.

Americans seem collectively primed to scream for ice cream every summer. The loudest Tarzan-thumps often come from fans who take their licks in the face of - or as a reward for - 10-mile runs and no-carb diets. Ice cream continues to be as popular as it was 300 years ago, when Gov. William Bladen of Maryland delighted his guests by offering them ice cream in Annapolis, more than a century before first lady Dolley Madison would serve it in the White House in 1812. Today, it is a year-round staple in most freezers, but its biggest season is summer, when it goes hand in hand with vacations and leisurely weekends.

LAS VEGAS --- Cold Stone Creamery, which bills itself as the Starbucks of ice cream parlors, plans to open 35 to 40 ice cream shops in Maryland over the next three years as part of an East Coast expansion, the company said yesterday. The Scottsdale, Ariz.-based franchise operator is to open its first Maryland store in Waugh Chapel in Crofton in October, followed by a second along the road encircling Arundel Mills the day after Thanksgiving. Other sites, to be operating by early next year, are Hunt Valley Mall, Frederick and Gaithersburg, area developer Jim McManus said during the International Council of Shopping Centers convention here.

QUICKLY BECOMING A neighborhood gathering place, Mr. Teddy's Dairy Delights in Woodbine offers some of the best soft-serve frozen custard around.With 11 flavors offered daily, not to mention sundaes, banana splits, floats, milkshakes, frozen yogurt and many other specialties, word has spread that Mr. Teddy's is the place to head on warm summer days.Most evenings, the umbrella-topped picnic tables are full, and business at the pink and white ice-cream trailer is brisk. Ball teams, swimming parties and neighborhood children line up at the screened windows and place their orders with Mr. Teddy himself.

It's over a hundred degrees at sunset in Locust Point, but still there are groups of people — old, young, middle-aged — gathered on corners and standing out on their front steps , from Decatur Street to Reynolds Street. They look sweaty and tired, but their faces light up when they hear a familiar jingle and see a bright aqua-blue-and-white truck turn the corner. It's the ice cream truck, Tammy Radtke at the wheel. "How you's doing?" comes the familiar voice from within the rolling summer concession.

Carol Saller has a disturbing post at Lingua Franca on difficult writers. It's quite a stunner. My experience has been almost exclusively with newspaper reporters, who display none of the obnoxious characteristics Ms. Saller describes. On the contrary, newspaper reporters understand that the standards and purposes of the publication trump their personal preferences. They do not allow their egos to stand in the way of the work. They are collegial and cooperative with the copy desk, grateful, sometimes almost pathetically so, for the copy editor's efforts to correct error and smooth out rough prose.

Previously: the new Salani was awesome, and the new Manono sucked. Back at Manono after Tribal Council, Alicia and Colton can't help gloating over the "blindside" they gave Monica; then they add to it by taunting Christina about how she has no alliance, and even if she makes it to the merge, she'll be toast. And then they get downright mean, barely letting her sleep in the shelter. Christina believes that Alicia is “genuinely not a good person,” and I have to say that I agree with her. Let's hope that she gets what's coming for her, if there is any karma in the universe at all. At Salani, they agree with me about Alicia.

We all scream for ice cream. And soon some of us might be barking for it, too. Maryland's first ice cream truck for dogs is ready to roll to events and parks. It's the dream come true for the owner of a Glen Elg dog day care ever who's wanted to do it ever since reading about one opening in the U.K. "We love our dogs and for some of us, they are our family," says Kelvin Abrams, the owner of Tiki's Playhouse and its new Doggie Ice Cream truck. "I've been working on it and working on it and waiting for the right opportunity.

If you don't support gay marriage, you probably don't want to get caught with a cone of Ben & Jerry's new flavor. Apple-y Ever After, available in the U.K., is the activist ice cream maker's attempt to advocate for gay marriage as it comes under consideration there this month. "Because ," the company says, "everyone is equal and deserves to live Apple-y Ever After!" Since Maryland beat the Brits to the punch, legalizing gay marriage earlier this month, there are no doubt a number of folks around here who'd like a scoop, or perhaps a double.

Frank & Nic's West End Grille is offering something different for Valentine's Day - a beer dinner. Featuring Sam Adams brews, the four-course dinner will be served at 8 p.m. on Feb. 14. The menu begins with a carrot, ginger and crab soup followed by a scotch egg. The main course is veal scallopini with a Boston Lager demi-glace, and the dessert course is hard-cider baked apples with vanilla paired ice cream. A Samuel Adams representative will be on hand to guide the dinner and for beer chats.

Red velvet is huge at weddings but it's a big deal for Valentine's Day. You can line your sweetheart's Valentine's Day with red velvet from sunup to sunset. Red velvet waffles and pancakes make a striking appearance on the breakfast table. Treat someone to breakfast at the Blue Moon Cafe in Fells Point, where Sarah Simington's red velvet pancakes, studded with white chocolate chips, are making their annual Valentine's Day appearance. For cocktail hour, head to Morton's the Steakhouse, which is serving its red velvet cocktail, a pretty potion of prosecco, raspberry lambic and Chambord, garnished with a raspberry.

When Katherine Kim of Ellicott City goes grocery shopping with her 4-year-old son Jonathan, she keeps any whining and food requests to a minimum by telling him in advance what they're going to buy. She typically picks up ice cream last, giving Jonathan something to look forward to as their shopping cart glides past shelves stuffed with cookies, potato chips and sweet cereals. Still, she said, Jonathan is partial to Kraft Macaroni & Cheese shaped like characters in the "SpongeBob" television show or "Cars" movies.

Head to Cold Stone Creamery from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Tues., Sept. 27 and donate to the Make-A-Wish Foundation to get free ice cream ! As part of the World's Largest Ice Cream Social, Cold Stone will give away 3 oz. tastes of its "Sprinkled with Wishes" creation, with sweet cream ice cream, brownie, rainbow sprinkles and fudge. The usual caveats apply: limit one per customer, available only during the times above while supplies last.  

I don't think I have ever used the "f-word" to describe myself. I've called myself overweight, and heavy. My clothes have been for "big girls" from the "women's" department, but fat has never really been in my vocabulary. Other people have called me fat. I remember an incident, probably 15 years ago, when I went out with a friend and her boyfriend and we met some other people. One of those people asked my friend's boyfriend which girl was his girlfriend, and he said "the fat one," referring to me. I can't remember that guy's name, but I sure remember that night, and how it was ruined.

Lost City Diner materialized in Charles North last August. Now, the fountain shop and late-night stop has shut itself down. Don't worry, though — its owner, Joy Martin, said it's an intermission. Martin, who also own the Club Charles, gave no firm date for the reopening of Lost City. In an email, she said she's "just closing to do some renovations to the kitchen and try to get my sign up. " When Lost City Diner opened suddenly last summer, it seemed to be the final chapter of a long-running serial that played out for years on the corner of Charles and Lanvale streets, half a block up from the Club Charles Lost City Diner, when it revealed itself, was beautiful, with antique fixtures and fanciful retro-industrial elements gorgeously evoking the giddy atmosphere of a Buck Rogers serial from the 1930s.