Dinner with friends and some Black Tea Ice Cream.

After a very busy day I rushed home and spent 3 solid hours making Veggie Chow Mein(correctly called Lo Mein), Buddhas Delight and Chicken with Black Bean Sauce. But truly the highlight was the Black Tea Ice Cream with Chocolate Hazelnut Rolled Wafers. A recipe will follow. I wanted to try this because while traveling in Japan I tried green tea ice cream as well as black. While the green was interesting and fun to try, I thought the black more suitable for Western tastes. So I gathered some recipes online an then played with them to come up with this:

Black Tea Ice Cream

2 cups milk
2 cups heavy cream
1/2 cup pasteurized egg product
3 plain black tea bags
3 Vanilla Nut Creme flavored Black Tea
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup white sugar
Pirouette Chocolate Hazelnut Rolled wafers to garnish

Step 1 is to heat 1/2 cup of the milk with the tea bags to a simmer. Then take off heat and steep 10 minutes. Then add eggs and rest of ingredients. Process in an ice cream maker(depending on capacity you might not be able to process the full amount in your machine) and place it in a container and freeze for a couple hours.

This produced a really perfect ice cream consistency and feel. I used my Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker that my mother gave me for Christmas a couple years ago. And the wafers were a perfect complement with their Nutella-like taste.

The only problem was that one of the guest at dinner doesn't like ice cream. Who knew there was anyone in the world who didn't like ice cream? Sacrilege in our family:)

And now that we are thinking tea, here is a poem I wrote in Granada, Spain about a teahouse (Teteria). The Tuareg are a nomadic middle eastern ethnic group.

La Teteria Tuareg
11-15-97

We throw shadows on the wall
And speak of martyrdom and Perpetua
Candle tilts and melts
Tea is down to dregs
And its cinnamon scent mixes with smoky air
St. Theresa comes to mind
And flees upon appearing
I am not she
I am not even Dorothea, an impassioned fool
God, give me patience to endure and strength for final cry.