In The "Insanity Doesn't Run In My Household, It Races!" Department

[Note: Please do NOT refer to me as the "Good Humor" gal. I'm distinctly a Bad Humor sorta salesperson.]

Part of the reason you're seeing more "blurt" types of posts here is preparation to move again (while I have not found the right place to go) and find a new job strangely interferes with my ability to sleep, eat, and cope with the ongoing bedlam that comes with starting an "old-fashioned" premium ice cream business here in Ben & Jerry's backyard (literally).

The ice cream business isn't mine, but it might as well be. I'm the one who decided to try to develop my own from-scratch ice cream just for friends and family and quickly found everyone saying, "I'm not kidding; you could have a hit if you can produce this commercially."

As my partner John said endlessly, "You must sell this!", I kept saying, "Look, I hate ice cream so I only make it when you and/or guests want it. But hey, if you're so sure, then take my recipe and figure out a way to produce it." Uh... for once, he listened (awww....) and the rest will live on in infamy. It's been eye-opening; you can't believe how hard the government makes it for humans to have anything natural in their diet!

Then, with the news we had to find a new place quickly, suddenly the Vermont Milk Company (the producer of various dairy items) called up and said, "We're making the ice cream in the morning." Unfortunately, however, no one mentioned that the "pasteurized" eggs they were including in this recipe (a custard style ice cream like in the old days) had more salt than anything I've ever tasted. Mouth-burning kind of salt.

Once salt goes in, you can't really compensate elsewhere to effectively cure the sodium overdose. Thus we sadly had to torpedo the first batch (all 500 pints) and miss out on Memorial Day weekend sales. VMC has been quite good about working out a solution.

So here we are, in the same 2-3 days in which we need to get moved, with hundreds of pints of ice cream from milk ONLY produced in Vermont, and only from dairy farmers who do not use bovine growth hormone or any of that other yucky stuff. (Fantastic paired with apple pie, cake, root beer for floats, high end milkshakes, atop Belgian waffles with/without blueberries, strawberries, melted chocolate, or whatever your fancy.)

Suddenly, the Suzuki has a freezer installed and we're staying up late in the night, in "clean room" apparel, labeling containers, while we debate the other flavors we may want to add (white chocolate? white chocolate with Rainier cherries? The tasty maple variations with or without nuts? holiday eggnog version or "Dangerously Dark Chocolate"? and with/without roasted pear or apple... or ...?

Hey, at least I'm involved with a product where - thank you my lactose intolerantbelligerent digestive system! - I do not need to worry about eating the profits. Talk about getting one's just dessert.