July is National Ice Cream Month. I’m throwing an ice cream social…in August. Oh well, it’s the thought that counts.

Who do we have to thank for this month-long celebration of ice cream?

The Gipper!

“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. Then we’ll go get some ice cream.”

Photo Credit: Curtis Patrick & Art Van Court collections

I thought an ice cream social would be a fun way to practice what I learned at Ice Cream 101 in January. To practice for the party, I’ve made ice cream almost every weekend since the class. I’m getting fat. So it’s time to unleash my ice cream on others because I’m giving like that.

I’m having 20 people over and plan to serve six flavors of ice cream and one sorbet. I’ve calculated that I need to make 15 quarts. So far I’ve made two. Somehow this all seemed like a better idea back in January.

A friend suggested having smaller ice cream scoops available because people would want to taste everything. As I always do, I had to kick that idea up to 11. I bought ice cream tasting spoons. I could not find a non-commercial source of ice cream tasting spoons. Let’s just say I now have a laughable number of ice cream tasting spoons.

I spent part of last weekend making a to do list for the party and Tetris-ing all the tasks into the amount of time left. Basically, I will be up to my eyeballs in party tasks (and ice cream tasting spoons) for the next ten days. After the party, I plan to be back with tales of how much ass it kicked, and how much everyone loved my ice cream, and how someone offered me a couple hundred thousand dollars to quit my job and open my ice cream store (what? unrealistic?!?!).

What flavor would you most want to see at an ice cream social? Besides a “guess how many ice cream tasting spoons are in this jar” game, and eating ice cream, and being social, do you have other suggestions for entertainment at an ice cream social?