This summer I got an ice cream maker. I've been trying out recipes and variations for the last few weeks. Fresh New Jersey raspberries mashed into a coarse puree and added to my basic vanilla in the last five minutes of mixing made for one of the highlights of my novitiate. After a couple of pretty good versions of vanilla chocolate chunk I was ready for another fruit flavor, but I wanted it to be something local and all we had at the Co-op was apples (wonderful biodynamic Galas from Threshold Farm) which don't work well in ice cream. Then last week KP picked up some delicious, ripe organic NJ peaches and I grabbed a couple of the fattest, juiciest ones and took them home, confident that I was about to create my masterpiece. But I blew it. I cut the peaches into cough drop size pieces instead of pureeing them. So the result was vanilla ice cream with crunchy peach ice cubes - the sweetness and delicate flavor of the peaches was lost. And there weren't going to be any more until the next week, if then. But, there's no point crying over spilt cream. So, when I was invited over to some friends' house for Labor Day dinner and asked to bring dessert, I knew what I was going to make: butter pecan ice cream. Just for the fun of it, pick up a carton of butter pecan ice cream in a store someday and read the ingredients. Here's what went into mine (all organic, too): pecans toasted in butter, sea salt, vanilla extract, cane sugar, heavy cream. A fantastic fringe benefit of making this particular ice cream is that you end up with 5 or 6 tablespoons of toasted pecan flavored butter left over. Although some care must be taken not to scorch either the pecans or the butter, I can't pretend that there is a great deal of skill involved in the whole process and an electric motor does the grunt work during freezing. But the results are spectacular, as the reactions of my friends and their other guests attested. So the key to success with ice cream, and food preparation in general, is the quality of the ingredients. Of course, I buy all mine at the Co-op. And right now I'm hoping that some more of those delicious New Jersey peaches will be available soon. I don't want summer to end before I have had another chance to create my masterpiece. -PW