The Ice Cream Version of the Neiman Marcus Cookie Urban Legend

I figure that most anyone who actually takes the time to read my blog is already well acquainted with the urban legend about the Neiman Marcus chocolate chip cookie recipe...you know, the one where the lady buys a cookie at the bakery at Neiman Marcus and has such a fit over it that she asks how much they'd charge for the recipe and supposedly the salesperson says "$250" which the person mistakes for "$2.50" as in "two dollars and fifty cents" but when she gets her credit card bill she discovers that she's been billed two hundred and fifty dollars so to get back at them she shares it with everyone she knows yada yada yada. The first time I heard it I think I actually believed it and in addition the cookies were fantastic.  Nice story, just not true though.

Well I've got a story for you and it's no urban legend, I can guarantee it, but it's about as bad.  I think Southerners have an intense relationship with homemade ice cream about the same way we do with anything fried in grease and tall, cold glasses of sweet iced tea.  Some of my earliest childhood memories are of being the "designated sitter" on my paw paw's ice cream freezer.  First he'd cover it with newspapers, then with an old terry cloth towel and lastly me for ballast.  He'd churn and I'd hold everything in place until he knew just by turning the handle when the delicious confection inside was finally ready to eat.  Ambrosia of the gods was what that stuff was.

So I recently decided that I'd try and duplicate the efforts of my long departed paw paw and get the stuff in which to make memories and homemade ice cream myself.  I know what you're thinking...back when I was the "designated sitter" on the back porch of yesterday there was no such thing as BlueBell or Ben and Jerry's or Mayfield's or Edy's (who all make their own pretty doggone good version of faux homemade anything) and homemade was what you got unless you wanted some of that nasty stuff called "ice milk" or maybe some Barbers vanilla that didn't even come close to the real thing.

It was 98 degrees in the shade and hotter than a $2.00 pistol when I walked in to Walmart to walk down Nostalgia Lane looking for an ice cream freezer.  The lightweight, cheap plastic version of my aforementioned paw paw's 10 pound wooden bucket with metal can, metal dasher, metal and wooden handle was hardly worth the $22.99 that I plunked down for it but I figured that was the best that I was probably going to be able to do.  And right next to it was the "ice cream mix" which I figured took the place of all the goodness that your mama used to cook on the stove to make "real" ice cream so at $2.50 or something like that each, I figured why not, and bought 4 of them.  I traipsed around to the back of the store and bought a half gallon of milk and then a quart of half and half, another $5.00 or so spent and then picked up some strawberries on sale for 99 cents.  The rock salt however, was another story.  I looked around where I'd found the freezer but no rock salt was to be found (as opposed to the other day when I was in the same store looking at the same freezers which were then surrounded by a plethora of boxes of rock salt.)  Not to be discouraged, however, I schlepped around to the garden center to see if they had any rock salt there.  I was not the first person who'd come to the garden center looking for rock salt either, the cashier told me, but they didn't have any either.  The cashier called the service center and they said to look around where the Epsom Salts was.  I knew it wasn't going to be in the pharmacy area so I didn't even bother to search there.  I did go to the "regular" salt area on the spice aisle just to give it a look but nothing was there.  I flagged down a customer service manager  who appeared to be studying an end aisle of candy bars and asked him (by this time I was about to call it a day and just forget the whole idea) and he said that they were out of it, that they'd been out of it for several days.  I'd come this far however and was not going home empty handed.

Hot as blue blazes in the car with my purchases...so far that's $22.99 for the freezer, $2.50 for the "mix", $5.00 for the milk and half and half, and 99 cents for the strawberries and I still don't have the magic salt. I pulled in to Walgreen's and asked them if they carried it and of course they didn't (if the cashier had told me to check by the Epsom Salts I'd have thought it was some sort of service desk conspiracy going on.)  My last hope was K-Mart.  Sure enough, ole K-Mart had it but buddy were they proud of it.  Rock salt there was $3.99!  They knew they had a captive audience though since they seemed to be the only folks around (at least in my area) that had any on the weekend of the 4th of July.  Naturally I had to pick up some $1.99 ice cream cones to go with it since they were sitting there just asking to be taken home.

By the time I got back in that hot car for the 3rd time and drove home I'd done a mental calculation of what my homemade ice cream was going to cost and with tax it came to around $40.00.  Without even realizing it I'd just bought in to the Neiman Marcus cookie trap.  I've got to admit that BlueBell's homemade vanilla at $6.00 (even cheaper if you catch it on sale) is about as good as whatever concoction I'm  going to make with my new freezer (that "mix" stuff is still suspect--it won't hold a candle to real sugar and eggs and vanilla and whipping cream that mama'nim used to stir on the top of the stove until it was time for me to sit on it.)  I think I've learned that sometimes you just need to salute the flag and go on...BlueBell or any of its close competitors, wins.  I may have bought the freezer but every time I want to use it I'm still going to have to buy the "stuff" that goes in it which will run a lot more than $6.00 and won't even come in a convenient carton to boot.

I'd invite you all over for some homemade ice cream but first I've got these bills to pay.