Food Processor

The flavor of raspberries is so intense that they can simply be blended with milk and sugar and made into this sumptuous, full-flavored sherbet. The mixture is best frozen right after you’ve blended together the ingredients, which preserves the vivid taste of the raspberries.

If you’ve ever gone shopping at the Fairway Market on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, you’ve found that the simple act of buying a good basket of strawberries has become a full-contact sport. Never in my life have I left a market with so many bumps and bruises! Next time I go, I’m wearing football gear to protect myself from the combative shoppers who wield their carts like modern-day jousting vehicles, ready to take on any and all oncoming produce shoppers who might happen to be heading toward the basket of berries they’ve set their sights on. If you think this is just an East Coast phenomenon, you should visit the Berkeley Bowl, in California, where people who’ve just parked their Volvos with fading “Make Love, Not War” bumper stickers are more than happy to hike up their drawstring pants and trample you with their Birkenstocks while homing in on their berries. But no matter where you live, I recommend that you take the trouble and assume all risks to find good strawberries with which to make this intensely flavored sorbet at home, where you’re safe and sound.

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.

You can tell a lot about people by looking in their freezer. Next time you’re at a friend’s house, peek in theirs and you’ll discover their most hidden desires. One secret I am willing to share is that I’m hopelessly frugal and it’s impossible for me to throw anything away, no matter how trivial. One day when I had lots of blackberries on hand, I pulled out one of my buried treasures, a small container of frozen lime juice left over from an overanxious lime-buying spree. I was curious about how the tart lime juice would play against the sweet blackberries. Happily, it was a great combination, and it’s one secret I don’t need to keep to myself. Although I recommend that you use freshly squeezed juice, frozen lime juice that you’ve kept well concealed is the next best thing.

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.

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.

Italians will often serve a Torta di Verdura for dessert, a cross between a cake and a tart packed with leafy greens. The first time I tried it I was unsure if I’d like it, but I found it unusually delicious and devoured the slice offered. Italian basil, which has a slight aniselike scent, provides the base for this herbaceous ice cream. This is wonderful to make in the summer when large bunches of basil are abundantly available at the market.

This frozen yogurt is a snap to put together, especially welcome in the summer which is when you may want to limit your time in a warm kitchen. But don’t let its ease of preparation fool you; this vibrantly colored frozen yogurt provides the biggest blast of strawberry flavor imaginable.

This is the first ice cream that springs to mind when people recall hand-cranked, old-fashioned fruit ice creams from their past. More than any other homemade ice cream, this is perhaps the most beloved of all flavors and is indeed best when spooned right out of the machine, just moments after it’s been churned. An easy way to peel peaches is to cut an X at the bottom and then lower them in a pot of boiling water for about 20 seconds. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the peaches to a colander and shock them with cold water, then let them cool. Afterward, you’ll find their fuzzy peels just slip right off.

Brilliant pink fresh strawberry ice cream is a classic flavor and, along with chocolate and vanilla, is an American favorite. I’m a big fan of any kind of berries served with tangy sour cream, but I think strawberries are the most delicious, especially when frozen into a soft, rosy red scoop of ice cream. Macerating the strawberries beforehand magically transforms even so-so berries into fruits that are brilliantly red. Try to eat this ice cream soon after it’s been churned.

When I wrote my first book on desserts, I told the story of the blueberry bush my father planted when I was growing up, which was an early lesson in disappointment (there were many more to come, but that was the first). As soon as the berries would ripen, the wily and evil blackbirds would come and snag any and all berries before I got to taste even one. When I returned home about a year ago, my sister had just sold the house and was moving away, and I noticed that the lonely berry bush was still there. And still devoid of berries. Although I gave up hope a long time ago, I considered warning the family moving in not to get their hopes up for any ripe blueberries. But I decided to let them find out on their own. They’ll learn the same lesson I did, and end up buying blueberries at the store, where the blackbirds can’t get them. Hopefully they’ll spare themselves the disappointment of a life as unfulfilled as mine, devoid of homegrown blueberries.

Raspberry ice cream is one of life’s most unabashed luxuries. I prefer to strain out the seeds, which interfere with the sublime smoothness and pleasure of this ice cream. To do this, purée the raspberries in a food processor, then press them through a mesh strainer with a flexible rubber spatula, or use a food mill. This recipe requires 1 1/2 cups (375 ml) of purée, so you’ll need to begin with about 6 cups (750 g) of fresh or frozen raspberries.

I had a sheltered life growing up in staid New England and never tasted an avocado until I was a teenager and took my first trip to California. There I was served a salad loaded with chunks of avocado, squishy, pale, and icky green. I tried to spear the offending slices to get them off my plate, but they resisted my persistent jabs and kept eluding my grasp. Now I realize that those luscious tidbits were trying to tell me something, and I regret the loss of so many avocados that I could have loved. If you’re hesitant to try avocado ice cream, let my foolhardy prejudice be a lesson to you. The best avocados are the pebbly-skinned Hass variety. When ripe and ready, the flesh should give just a little when pressed. And be sure to try the Avocado Licuado con Leche in the Perfect Pairing at the end of the recipe. It is unbelievably delicious.

Unlike some of the other frozen yogurts in this book, I only make this with plain, unstrained yogurt. Since the peach purée is so velvety thick, this frozen yogurt has a lovely consistency when frozen.

The Belgians have their own version of gingersnaps, called speculoos (SPEC-oulooze). They’re meant to be nibbled alongside the copious amounts of beer that Belgians drink, which was one of the many lessons I learned when I went to chocolate school there, at Callebaut College. The Belgians like their beer so much that the outdoor beer gardens are busy all year long, even during the freezing cold winters. You have to brush the snow off your table to put down your glass! The good news is that you don’t have to worry about your beer getting warm. Back home, I found that speculoos go equally well when crumbled and folded into lemon ice cream, which can be consumed any time of the year.