Vanessa grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas - the hometown of former US President Bill Clinton. While
she didn't know the former president personally, her home town heritage was all the inspiration she
needed to become involved in local small-town politics in her current place of residence - Trumann, Arkansas.
For many of us, ahem, older folk, one of the fondest and most unique memories is of our fathers or grandfathers, grandmothers or mothers taking time out to crank that old ice cream machine: in my case, living with Mom and Dad next door to grandparents, I recall how Pop would get out this bucket (either metal or wooden, I think) with a mechanism that was drawn across the opening and which had a small reservoir suspended from it and into the bucket.
At one end of the ice cream “machine” was a hand crank. Pop filled the bucket with ice, inserted the thingy, poured cream and sugar (and coffee) into the center reservoir, and then proceeded to crank by hand for a long time. The drippy mixture would slowly turn into a thicker, sweet soupy mixture, and, eventually, into a creamy, cold treat.
I remembered these rare and special moments of my back woods childhood whenever I filled the ice cream machine hopper at the homemade ice cream store I worked at in my college days. Those ice cream machine contraptions, however, were modernized, electric, and of course were commercial-sized, capable of making a hundred gallons of any flavor imaginable in one run.
Then, a few years ago, at the home of one my friends, one of the most creative geniuses ever, I had the pleasure of revisiting my childhood, my teen years, and my respect for one of the greatest inventions ever—the ice cream machine. An artist and writer salon ensued. We had musicians and painters and poets and masseurs, tattoo artists and mystics and craftspersons in every room of the house and outside in the yards. We had unique and ethnic and classic cuisine spreads. And we had one guest bring an ice cream machine.
Like the ice cream machine at the shop combined with the art of the ice cream machine of forty-plus years ago, this new miniature, portable, electric ice cream machine made the best ice cream...and it was fast (took about twenty minutes), made just enough (not too little as the first ice cream machine I remember did, and not too much, as, of course, the commercial ice cream machine made), and was a creative activity for a party.
I guess what I am getting at is all but the obvious: an ice cream machine for your home is 100% positive: it brings with it happy memories; it is easy to use these days; it is fast; it is a unique item for kids and adults to gather round and work together with; and it produces the yummiest of treats...which you can use to make healthy snacks, too, if you absolutely must. Me? I go for the coffee ice cream—sugar, caffeine, and fat. MMMM.
