Four Hundred Gallons of Vanilla
A church ice cream social in Stephenville plans for fifty people and accidentally churns four hundred gallons of vanilla.
Every July our church holds an ice cream social on the lawn, and my job is to bring the milk and cream from the dairy. The planning committee gave me the number as 'forty gallons.' I wrote it on the back of my hand. Somewhere between the hand and the milk house, a zero got added, and I will not say whose zero it was.
By Friday afternoon, there were four hundred gallons of fresh cream waiting on the loading dock, and a very patient man with a refrigerated truck wondering where to park. I called the committee chairwoman, who was holding a pie, and she asked how many gallons I had. I told her. There was a pause in which I could hear several pies being set down.
We could not send it back. The only thing to do was make ice cream. By nine on Saturday, forty-one churns were running on the church lawn, borrowed from every kitchen in Stephenville and two from a man named Alvin who would not say where he got them. We turned the cranks until our arms burned, and the lawn smelled like a cream pie sitting in the sun.
By noon, word had spread, and people came from three counties. They came in pickup trucks and on tractors and one family came in a convertible. We served vanilla in cones, vanilla in bowls, vanilla with peaches, and vanilla in a bucket for the youth group. A man from the water district told me it was the single best idea the church had ever had. I did not correct him.
We raised enough that day to repaint the fellowship hall and fix the church bus. Since then the committee has made it a tradition to order forty gallons and then argue about the zero. If you ever need to feed a crowd, the folks at Dairy MAX have good tips, and I will hold your milk. The sequel is on farm.FM.
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