Frozen Dessert

When I moved into my first home in San Francisco, the backyard was teeming with blackberry bushes. Blinded by greed, I was thrilled at the prospect of having as many luscious blackberries as I wanted. But as I soon learned, blackberry bushes are a mixed blessing, and for the next few years I spent many thorny weekends working to thwart the persistent shrubs from advancing and taking over my entire yard. Luckily, the bonus was indeed lots and lots of inky blackberries all summer long. But each and every one I picked was well earned, and I still have some battle scars to prove it.

Creating a whole book with lots of recipes for sorbets means that you run the risk of using the word “refreshing” too often. But this sorbet is truly the most refreshing of them all, so I saved that word to describe it. Each bite is pure, frosty bliss. I use a rosé wine that’s not too sweet, with a touch of fruitiness. You could use almost any blush wine that leans toward the dry side as well, though in saying so I risk losing cred in the eyes of wine lovers and oenophiles. Because of the quantity of wine in this sorbet, it will not freeze very firmly in your ice cream machine and will be somewhat soft when you scrape it out. But don’t worry. When you go to serve it a few hours later, you’ll find that it’s the perfect texture, and yes, very refreshing.

One of the funniest (albeit most excruciating) things I’ve ever seen was a videotaped appearance of a cookbook author making a rhubarb pie on a live morning television show. Just as the cameras began rolling, the cocky, self-assured host looked at his guest and blurted out, “I hate rhubarb. I mean, I really hate it.” The poor dear continued to make her rhubarb pie, but it was easy to see that his constant grousing was taking its toll on her as she baked, bantered, and defended her delicious-looking pie for a few painful on-air minutes. If it were me, I would have taken a different approach. With the cameras rolling, I would have ordered him out of the studio and pulled another person into the kitchen who looked forward to the first rhubarb in the spring with the same anticipation that I do. Look for stalks that are bright red, which will make the most enticingly colored sorbet. The flavor of the gently stewed ruhubarb with fresh strawberries will remind you why this combination is so beloved by almost everyone, including me.

I was twenty years old when I tasted my first fresh apricot. I was baking in a restaurant in upstate New York, and one day the produce person handed me a small paper sack of dewy orange orbs. I’d eaten many a dried apricot in my lifetime but had neither seen nor tasted a fresh one, and frankly, I didn’t know what to do with them. Since I had just a handful, I made one singularly gorgeous apricot tart that I kept away from prying hands (the greatest hazard for the pastry chef in any professional kitchen), slicing it carefully so eight lucky customers were able to have a taste. My first summer in California, I was amazed at how many fresh apricots there were and thought that the stacks of crates at the market were a one-time windfall. So I started hoarding them, making as many things as I could before they disappeared forever. Or so I thought. When next year rolled around and the cases of apricots started stacking up again, I learned that they were actually quite common and rather prolific. But to this day, when they’re in season I try to use as many as I can, still mindful of how precious each and every silky-soft apricot is. And don’t be put off by apricots that are so ripe they feel like they’re ready to burst. That’s when they’re at their best.

Plums are the last of the summer fruits to arrive, and they stay around long enough to welcome in the fall. Having a batch of this sorbet in the freezer is the perfect way to extend the warm glow of summer just a few more weeks.

There’s a curious custom in Gascony, a region in the southwest of France known for its full-bodied red wines (its famous neighbor is Bordeaux). When they’ve just about finished their soup, the locals tip a little bit of the red wine from their glass into their soup bowl, mingling the wine with the last few spoonfuls of the broth. I later discovered that this custom is equally good with a goblet of sorbet when I was scrambling to figure out a way to make this rosy nectarine sorbet a bit more special for an impromptu dinner party. I simply scooped sorbet into my guests’ wine glasses at the table and let them pour in as little (or as much) red wine as they wished. It was a big success. If you have time to think ahead, prepare a big bowl of sweet, juicy berries and sliced nectarines, and let your guests add some fruit to their sorbet too.

It’s easy to forget that citrus fruits do have a specific season, since they seem abundant all year round. The major exception is tangerines, which are rarely seen except during the winter. My favorite varieties for making this sorbet are the oddly shaped tangelos, whose juice is mischievously tart, and the mottled honey tangerines, whose coarse, funky exterior belies the bright-colored and exceptionally sweet juice within.

This frozen delight is perfect in the summer when you need a brisk perk-me-up. It combines two of my favorite flavors, coffee and chocolate, in one scoop.

There are folks who can’t imagine dessert without chocolate, while others aren’t happy unless they get something with citrus. Sometimes I can’t decide which I feel like. Am I in the mood for something citrusy? Or am I having a chocolate craving that needs to be satisfied? Here’s a happy truce that marries the two flavors in perfect harmony and is guaranteed to please everyone.

While teaching classes in the American heartland few years back, as I started to measure out some buttermilk, I stopped and gasped, horrified to see tiny yellow flecks floating on top. Being a city slicker, I figured there was something wrong with the buttermilk and thought I’d have to toss it. But on closer inspection, I noticed that those flecks were little bits of real, honest-to-goodness butter, something you don’t see often anymore, since most buttermilk is cultured rather than a by-product of the butter-making process. The crowd got a good laugh at my startled reaction to my first encounter with real, old-fashioned buttermilk. And I promised them that I’d never dismiss the country’s midsection as “flyover states” again, since there’s very good buttermilk down there.

Anyone who’s been to New York City in August knows that one of the best ways to cool down is by spooning up the ubiquitous Italian ice sold by pushcart vendors all over town. Unfortunately, it’s mostly disappointing and is never as good as what you can easily make at home. This sorbet captures the taste of fresh lemons better than anything you’ll find on the street.

Way back when, long before svelte supermodels made it chic to do so, relatives of mine would make their annual winter pilgrimage to sunny Miami Florida for relaxation and, God willing, a bit of a schvitz. A week later we’d greet a deeply bronzed Uncle Myron and Aunt Sophie at the airport, and they’d invariably be schlepping mesh nylon sacks bulging with yellow-skinned grapefruits, a bit of sunshine for those of us without the chutzpah to escape the dreary Northeast winter. Nowadays grapefruits are everywhere, but they’re at their best during the dead of winter. Choose fruits that are heavy for their size, with ends that are a bit flat, an indication they’ll be juicy and sweet.

If you’re looking for a light, simple, lemony frozen dessert, here it is. It’s a bit more substantial than the Lemon Sorbet (above) and every bit as good.

Whenever I pass a bin of colorful limes at the market, I can’t resist running my hands over their glossy, knobby, emerald skins. I don’t know why, but I’m always hypnotized when I see big, overflowing bins of shiny limes, and I just love to touch them. Maybe it’s because fresh limes transport us to somewhere far away, suggesting blazing hot beaches full of sexy, half-dressed locals lounging in the sun. If that doesn’t give you the impetus to make this sorbet, I don’t know what will.

Grapes that are very robust, such as Concord or Muscat, make a fine, flavorful grape sorbet. These grapes are usually at their best in autumn. If you have access to wine grapes, they produce a wonderful sorbet as well. Don’t use seedless table grapes, such as Thompson and Red Flame; these make a great snack, but not a very tasty sorbet.

One of the few fruits native to North America is the cranberry. They are hollow, which is why you can bounce them (go ahead, try it) and also explains why they float, which turns out to be an advantage at harvest time. Farmers flood the areas where cranberries are cultivated with water, causing the berries to rise to the surface, where it’s a cinch to scoop ’em up. Predictably, the majority of cranberries are purchased just before Thanksgiving, but I stock up the day after, when they’re on sale, and freeze them to use during the rest of the year.

I wouldn’t dream of visiting the vast Central Market in Florence without my friend Judy Witts, known throughout town as the Divina Cucina. With Judy as my guide, butchers and cheese merchants greet us like given-up-for-lost family members, and everywhere we turn another oversized platter appears, heaped with Tuscan delights: sheep’s-milk pecorino, candied fruits spiced with mustard seeds, fresh raspberries dotted with syrupy balsamic vinegar, and, gulp, juicy tripe sandwiches (which I haven’t built up the courage to try). And because we’re in Italy, it all ends with shots of grappa taken straight from little glass vials, obbligatorio after all that sampling. This sorbetto is adapted from Judy’s recipe. One of her favorite parts is the little chocolate “seeds” it contains. Since watermelons have a lot of water, take the sorbetto out of the freezer long enough ahead of serving to make it scoopable, 5 to 10 minutes. To pass the time, serve shots of grappa, and if there’s any left by serving time, splash some over the sorbetto too.

My friend Susan Loomis says that finding a perfect melon is like finding love—you need to try many before you land just the right one. The best way to pick one (a melon, that is) is to find one that has lots of netting around the outside and a sweet and delicious smell. Follow those tips, and there’s no doubt that you’ll fall head over heels for this simple sorbet that makes excellent use of the fragrant melons that are available during the summer months.

I was toiling away years ago in a restaurant kitchen when one day a celebrity chef stopped by who had a reputation for being rather, um, obnoxious. I was minding my own business, caught in a Zen-like state while peeling a case of apples and, naturally, generating a huge pile of peels, which I tossed into the garbage as I went. He walked by, looked in the garbage, and reprimanded me: “Don’t you know you’re throwing away the best part?” My infamous sarcasm got the best of me, so I offered to wrap them up for him to take home. From the look on his face, I’m sure it was that moment that effectively killed my professional television cooking career. All kidding (and sarcasm) aside, the peelings do indeed have a lot of flavor, so I include the peels when infusing the apples in this sorbet. Hopefully, this recipe will make amends to the offended party and soon you’ll see me peeling away on prime time.

Use fragrant pears that are buttery ripe and slightly soft to the touch. You’ll be glad you did when you taste how good this simple sorbet is. Pears are one of the only fruits that ripen off the tree, so if your pears are rock hard when you buy them, chances are they’ll transform into soft, luscious, sorbet-worthy fruits in a few days. When just right, pears exude a strong, unmistakable sweet pear fragrance at the end opposite the stem. Bartlett, Comice, and French butter pears are varieties that I recommend.