By Keith Watson
Homemade ice cream is one of those family traditions that’s all but disappeared. Remember when you were being adventurous if you bought Neapolitan or ventured into the sherbet section? You can now spend half the day trying to distinguish between Chunky Monkey and Chubby Hubby. In my family, traditional vanilla was always a hit, but for a real treat, we added fresh peaches or strawberries to that hand-cranked freezer.
Many years ago, every home owned a hand-cranked ice cream freezer. We really thought we had gone high tech when the electric version came out. Being the youngest and chubbiest of the children, my job was to sit on the freezer and hold it in place while my brother, Rex, cranked. This gave a whole new meaning to the phrase “freezing my butt off.” Once it was too hard to turn the handle anymore, we would wrap the freezer with a cloth and let it “cure” for another hour or so until the ice cream froze solid.
My sister-in-law, Patty, made the best Milky Way ice cream and my sister-in-law, Phyllis, always brought her mother’s Granny Brown’s homemade fried apple pies. The combination of these two desserts was enough to keep us away from any store-bought candy for a long time.
The Fourth of July celebration was always a special time for us to gather as a family and honor those who served our country. Barbecue ribs, Coca-Cola, homemade ice cream and fried apple pies were a staple. We always had fresh-popped popcorn and parched peanuts on hand for the fireworks; and, of course, the candy jars were filled to the top.
For this month’s tablescape — and in preparation for July Fourth — we used one of my grandmother’s handmade quilts as a backdrop. We dressed the table in a blue, checked tablecloth accented with fresh ivy and American flags that we placed in an antique Longaberger basket. We staged our red, white and blue napkins in a hand-painted ceramic watermelon and our fried apple pies in my mother’s cast-iron skillet.
Be sure to take some time during the busy season to hug those close to you, kiss the ones you love and thank those who make it possible for us to live safely in this great country.
Keith Watson, owner and president of Keith Watson Events, a leading full-service special events and design production company, specializes in adding the “wow” factor to events big and small. When designing and producing events, Watson draws not only from his fine arts background but also from his many years of corporate experience in Special Event management at Callaway Gardens in Georgia, Bankers Trust (Deutsche Bank) on Wall Street, Swiss Re Insurance, the Guggenheim Museum, The Cloisters and The Metroplitan Museum of Art in New York City. Watson is known throughout the industry for his customer satisfaction, attention to detail and his ability to put the most nervous host at ease.