Sugar, Cream, and the Foundations of Marriage

I should have seen it back in March, when Mrs. Tycoon and I were in The Dalles, the famous end of the Oregon Trail video game. (Someday I'll write an opinion piece about The Dalles, and its commitment to the The in all official naming. I'm either firmly against, or manifestly for, the enclave of "West The Dalles.") We were in The Dalles because our passports were expired, and the post office there was the closest place we could get a quick appointment. We needed new passports for complicated reasons, but to pack it in a nutshell the Sumerians invented the zero, and the Greeks picked it up from them, but the Greeks were sort of wishy-washy on their base numbers, doting on multiples of three. The Romans were firmly in the tens camp, but no one had told them about numbers yet, and they were doing their best with letters. Then a bunch of wars and politics happened, and also Hallmark cards, and now a modern couple must renew their passports in years when their wedding anniversary contains a zero.

When our passport appointments were finished, we celebrated that triumph over bureucracy in the same way we celebrated our engagement. We googled "pastry shops" and we walked to the closest one.

In the end, we didn't pursue the Epic Anniversary Vacation we had in mind, and that's for the best. COVID had its laugh, and we spent our anniversary at home, together on the couch with our favorite Indian take-out. Then an accident happened, as they will on anniversary evenings. In our post-curry digestive glow, we went looking for a video to watch, and we stumbled on Jeni Britton Bauer's gourmet homemade ice cream class. In twenty minutes, our lives were changed. In thirty, Amazon had confirmed our order for a cookbook, an ice cream machine, and a waffle cone maker.

Sometimes it's a simple thing that reminds you what's important. That short video brought us back to our center, helped us remember the true foundation of our marriage, the pillars that have upheld us through twenty years together: sugar, flour, and butterfat. And then there's the fourth pillar, the one no one talks about, though it's the bedrock of stability. If you want to keep things smooth and easy, additives are the secret.

Corn syrup, corn starch, and cream cheese, in this case. They bind to water molecules, reducing the development of large ice crystals that mar your ice cream's silky texture.

Several patient minutes after the new equipment arrived, we started mixing up the Roasted Pistachio Ice Cream on page 40 of Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home. If we'd followed the steps less closely, I could try to be sneaky, and print our recipe as an adaptation. Sadly (not sadly), we did it by the book. Our only change was to layer in some crumbled Pepperidge Farm Bordeaux cookies.

When I say we're happy with this year's anniversary, it will sound either false or sentimental. It's easy to spot the flaw in a trope like "we don't need Paris, we've got ice cream." I mean, duh, there's ice cream in Paris.

But guys, this shit is good.