Sorbet

Once upon a time, before the advent of mass transportation, only the rich were privileged enough to taste pineapples. They became a status symbol, meaning that one had great wealth and enjoyed much prosperity if one was able to afford them. Nowadays, fresh pineapples are available just about everywhere, and few of us have to deprive ourselves of enjoying a juicy, sweet pineapple whenever we want. Now that’s my idea of progress. To peel a fresh pineapple, use a knife to lop off the bottom and the top. Cut away the skin and pry out any “eyes” with the tip of a vegetable peeler. Then cut the pineapple flesh into quarters and remove the tough inner core.

If you don’t have fresh passion fruit or pulp, make do by adding more tangerine juice. But I do advise looking around for it (see Resources, page 237), since its unmistakable flavor gives this sorbet an authentic taste of the tropics.

This sorbet should be frozen right after it’s mixed to preserve the fresh flavor and color of the bananas. They should be very ripe. If you want to add a spoonful or more of dark rum to taste, feel free to do so. One of my testers, Joanna, mentioned that this was the most budget-friendly dessert she’d ever made.

When I was a professional baker, foodies would walk into the kitchen, look down their noses at my gorgeous flats of cultivated blueberries, and sneer, “Oh, I only like wild blueberries.” Then they’d stand there making idle chat while grabbing fistfuls of domestic blueberries and gobbling them up. Wild blueberries are indeed wonderful, but they can be hard to find (unlike annoying food snobs), so you can use any kind of blueberry here. Just don’t gobble them all up, or let anyone else do so, before you get a chance to use them.

I’ll bet Dom Pérignon, the monk who is often given credit for inventing Champagne, would be turning over in his grave if he knew I had mixed his fizzy elixir with pineapple. But I’m sure I’d have his blessing if he tasted how good this combination is.

Kiwis are people from New Zealand. Kiwifruits are the emerald green fruits that we consume. The difference is important to New Zealanders, who are apt to look somewhat terrified if you present them with a bowl of sorbet and proudly tell them is made from fresh kiwis.

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.

I’m insatiable when it comes to fresh cherries, and I eat pounds and pounds of them right off the stem during their ridiculously brief season, which I’m convinced is one of nature’s cruelest acts. But their characteristic flavor really becomes pronounced when warmed, so I sauté them first to deepen their luxurious flavor. Be sure to start with full-flavored, very dark cherries, like plump Burlat cherries or blackish red Bings.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

One day while wasting the afternoon flipping through the television channels (what did we do before the remote control?), I stopped when I came across a not-very-well-choreographed procession of statuesque, exotically beautiful women parading across a stage. After a few minutes of riveted attention, I realized that I’d happened upon the Miss Martinique pageant. Once the glamorous gals had strutted their stuff wearing barely-there bikinis, teetering around precariously on steep high heels (it seemed the smaller the swimsuit, the higher the heels), the contest concluded with the host posing the all important question about why the pageant was so vital for promoting world peace and understanding. One of the contestants flashed her big, bright smile, looked right into the camera, and responded, “Because beauty is the key to communication.” With a thought-provoking answer like that, awarding the crown to anyone else would have been a crime. And sure enough, she won. But maybe she got mixed up and was talking about mangoes, the other beauties of the tropics. Their vibrant red exterior and succulent orange pulp do indeed communicate beauty and good taste that are not just skin deep.

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.