Jackson Free Press

The three stickers on my car sum up my value system pretty well. There is the Amherst College sticker, an homage to my beloved alma mater, whose ever-increasing social consciousness is working to make higher education more accessible to the financially disadvantaged. Below that, and to the left—geographically and politically—is my equality sign from the Human Rights Campaign, which works for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equal rights. Finally—and perhaps dearest to my heart—there is the Herrell's ice cream sticker.

During my senior year at Amherst, a certain evil conglomerate ice cream company opened a location on the same block in nearby Northampton, Mass., as Herrell's—only the best independent ice creamery I have ever had the pleasure of patronizing. In fact, I am fairly certain that Steve Herrell—founder, proprietor and secret love of my life—invented the method of mixing toppings into plain ice cream for which the aforementioned evil conglomerate became famous.

Fortunately, I'm not bitter. Why, you ask? Because in western Massachusetts, even a popular and—OK, I'll admit it—delicious national chain store can't stand up to great local competition. By the time I graduated, the evil franchise had closed, and Herrell's reigned victorious.

Good ice cream is really important to me, sometimes embarrassingly so. Some have even suggested that I transferred from Barnard College to Amherst because I wanted to be closer to Herrell's. I can neither confirm nor deny those reports, but I can say I made good and frequent use of my proximity to Herrell's throughout my years at Amherst.

There was the night my best friend and I drove the 15 minutes to Herrell's and got ice cream, then went and got slices of pizza and finally rounded out the night with a stop at the local doughnut shop—all in the span of three hours. Then there was the period when one of the employees wanted so badly to date my sister that he gave both of us free ice cream for several weeks, until he was no longer employed there. As it turned out, he was giving free ice cream to lots of pretty girls.

But most importantly, there was sweet cream ice cream with chocolate sandwich cookies "smooshed in." There was mudpie ice cream—coffee ice cream with a fudge ribbon and, again, chocolate sandwich cookies. There was the Twinkie ice cream my friend Julia invented. There were root beer floats made with Private Stock Vanilla, a flavor that complemented the soda in an inexplicably wonderful way. There was house-made hot fudge. There was chocolate whipped cream.

The place is an ice cream wonderland.

When I moved to Jackson a year and a half ago, I said that all this town needed was a good pizza place and a good ice cream place for me to be set for life. The Pizza Shack opened shortly thereafter—the answer to one prayer. Before Sal and Mookie's had the chance to fulfill my other wish, I was in dire need of some good ice cream. I decided to make it happen myself—a $50 ice cream maker later, and I was in business.

Then, when Jackson Free Press Art Director Darren Schwindaman started talking about opening a design store, everyone was trying to make contributions. I tried to help with the buttons before realizing that a signature ice cream flavor was really going to be more up my alley. When the store was named Pulp, I knew I needed something bright and colorful, but also creamy and delicious. I did a little experimenting, and it didn't take me long to come up with this recipe. Darren approves—enthusiastically, I might add.

Make it yourself, or watch for special ice cream days at Pulp, now open in Fondren Corner.

"PULP'D" ICE CREAM

1 cup skim milk
3/4 cup sugar
2 cups heavy cream
1 tsp. pure orange extract
6 drops red food coloring
9 drops yellow food coloring
1 package raspberries

Whisk milk and sugar together until well incorporated, about 2 minutes. Add heavy cream and mix thoroughly, then add orange extract and food coloring and stir. Freeze according to your ice cream maker's directions. Put very ripe raspberries into a bowl and smash with a fork until pulped. Add to the ice cream in the last stages of freezing.