Birthdays and Books

My baby brother is 16, and he's a baby no more!  The 6'1"-140 lb-man occupying Joseph's bedroom hardly resembles the cute little boy I left last August.  He has a girlfriend, shaves his face almost every morning, and turns everything into a "that's what she said" joke.  Add in the fact that he'll be getting his drivers license this week, and there's no denying he's a full blown teenager. 

To celebrate his big birthday, I made homemade vanilla ice cream.  This past Saturday, my time was marked by huge bags of ice and the annoying churning of the ice cream maker.  The recipe I used, courtesy of Southern Sensation Paula Deen, was of course delicious.  This scrumptious dessert is sure to satisfy your sweet tooth and cool you down after a trip in the sweltering sun.  The directions say the total time is 3 hr. 10 minutes, with a yield of approximately 1 gallon.  So if you find yourself without plans this upcoming weekend, grab and great book and make frozen food. 

Ingredients: 

• 4 eggs
• 2 cups white sugar
• 2 (12-ounce) cans evaporated milk
• 1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
• 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
• milk

With an electric mixer, cream eggs and sugar.  Add evaporated milk, condensed milk, and vanilla.  Beat well. Pour into an electric ice cream churn.  Add milk to the fill line.  Insert dasher.  Pack cooler 1/3 with ice.  Add a layer of rock salt.  Repeat layering with ice and salt until full, but be careful not to spill salt into the churn.  When the machine stops, remove the dasher and drain water (from the melted ice cubes) from the cooler.  Fill with mor ice and salt.  Cover with a towel and let harden 

*For fruit ice cream (such as strawberry or peach) add 2 cups finely sliced fresh fruit with 1 cup suga before the milk.

*If you're worried about the raw eggs, pasteurized eggs are a great substitute to their traditional counterparts.  They have the same consistancy and work quite well for the mix. 

Look What I Just Finished Reading

All this interning has left little time for leisure reading, but this evening I finally finished my next book pick...Candace Bushnell's Sex and the City.  Being a twenty-something living in NYC, I of course watched the show religiously this past semester.  And, I'd always though Ms. Bradshaw's journalism career was something to aspire to.  However, only recently did I read the book that inspired the pop culture icon.  As to be expected, the book discusses the Mr. Big romance, fashion, and fabulosity; however, the HBO series and the paperback don't quite matchup with every detail of the four women's lives.  Nonetheless, I'd definitely suggest it to anyone who finds themselves daydreaming about which Sex and the City character (Carrie, Charlotte, Samantha or Miranda) they are?

My Rating:****