Thank Yous

Ice cream is a whole lot more fun with friends, and writing a book is, too.

This book would have in no way been possible without Food52’s community members who dared to dream creamier, kookier, and bigger with their ice creams. Thank you for sharing your recipes and wisdom with all of us at Food52 and now in this book. Our freezer is a lot more fun and exciting because of each of you: Abbie Argersinger, Alice Medrich, Amanda Hesser, Angela Brassinga, Barbara Reiss, Big Gay Ice Cream, Bobbi Lin, Brooks Headley, Christina Tosi, Cristina Sciarra, Cynthia Chen McTeman, David Lebovitz, Derek Laughren, Elina Cohen, Emiko Davies, Emily Connor, Emily Vikre, Ethan Frisch, Kathy Wielech Patterson, Katie Quinn, Lisa Canducci Bailey, Liz Larkin, Mandy Lee, Marian Bull, Mary French, Max Falkowitz, Merrill Stubbs, Michelle Lopez, Molly Yeh, Mrs. Mehitabel, Nicholas Day, Nicole Rucker, Pat Aresty, Phyllis Grant, Posie Harwood, The River Café, Sarah Simmons, Suzanne DeBrango, Virginia Kellner, Winnie Abramson, and Yossy Arefi. A special thank-you to Alice Medrich, who has flooded our website with invaluable information about ice cream and was there to answer phone calls and give advice on probably unnecessary worries.

Thank you to Cristina Sciarra, our ice cream sherpa who leaves no flavor or serving idea unconsidered, but doesn’t flinch when we suggest another (burnt toast) and then another another (lemon spoom?). We can’t pick our favorite of the 30 recipes you developed for this book, so we won’t! Thank you for lugging your industrial ice cream maker from Jersey for shoots, and for responding to e-mails in record time.

The editors—Kristen Miglore, Ali Slagle, Sarah Jampel, Kenzi Wilbur, Amanda Sims, Caroline Lange, Samantha Weiss-Hills, and Leslie Stephens—ate ice cream before 10 a.m. and wrote headnotes that make each recipe sound like the special snowflake that it is. You are all also special snowflakes. This book wouldn’t be what it is without Sarah, whose many (in a good way) ideas about how to make ice cream more fun made Ali’s job of Frankensteining this book together a whole lot easier.

To the photo team, we did it! James Ransom and Alexis Anthony, thank you for loving our muse not just for how it tastes, but also for how it looks. Thank you to James for agreeing to shoot this book while on a Paleo diet, and to Alexis for finding yet another way to show a scoop of ice cream. Kristen and Sarah, ice cream styling is hard, but we found our way. Let’s just not do it without air conditioning again, okay? Thank you to Josh Cohen and his helpers Allison Buford, Elizabeth Parlin, Scott Cavagnaro, Elena Apostolides, and Shannon Elliot for filling two freezers with ice cream, week after week—and for only kind of freaking out when our ice cream maker died.

Thank you to our testers—Anna Francese Gass, Dawne Marie Shonfield, Jennifer Philipp, Kate Knapp, Lauren Shockey, and Marisa Robertson-Textor—for facing brain freeze in the dead of winter and isolating the great from the good recipes. You’re welcome for making you eat ice cream. Our gratitude to Head Recipe Tester, Stephanie Bourgeois, for answering e-mails with subject lines like “burnt toast dust measurement” without guffawing. Big thank you to CB Owens, too, for your attention to detail and caring about punctuation as much as we love ice cream.

To Amanda, Merrill, and the rest of the Food52 team, thank you for sharing our belief that ice cream knows no bounds in flavor, season, method, or joy; for participating in ice cream socials, often; and for doing all the behind-the-scenes stuff you do to bring this book to life.

Ten Speed: We know that each of you has touched this book in some way. Thank you for your belief in a different, looser, sillier ice cream book, and for helping us make one—that’s just silly enough.