Rainbow Sherbet

The Memphis Mother’s Day trip wrapped Sunday May 14. We are back in Tulsa Sunday evening as I write this. Brayden is eighty-two weeks old. The Mother’s Day brunch at Honeysuckle Drive Sunday morning was the small Carol-and-Dustin’s-dad-and-us-three quiet end to the five-day stay.

The rainbow sherbet is the small frozen-dessert Carol had pulled from the chest freezer in her garage Saturday afternoon when Brayden had gotten overheated in the back yard. The sherbet was the brand Carol had been buying for forty years (Mayfield from the Memphis grocery chain) and was the small comfort that the Mother’s Day weekend ended up being about — not the brunch on Sunday, not the day-trip to the Botanic Garden, not the lunch with Aunt Geraldine, but the small Saturday-afternoon moment of Carol pulling a half-gallon of sherbet from her freezer and feeding Brayden small spoonfuls on the back porch with the late-spring Memphis light shining through the dogwood that has been in Carol’s yard since Dustin was small.

I am writing this Sunday from the apartment in Tulsa with a small carton of rainbow sherbet in our own freezer that we bought at the Reasor’s before the drive home. The recipe for the post is not a recipe per se — it is the small acknowledgment that some of the most-meaningful food in a life is not the food we cook but the food we eat with people we love at moments when food is the gesture rather than the meal.

The text below the recipe section is a small explanation of how to use store-bought rainbow sherbet to recreate the small-comfort-moment in your own kitchen with your own people. The recipe is not the recipe. The recipe is the framing.

Rainbow Sherbet

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 0 minutes | Total Time: 4 hours 20 minutes (includes freezing) | Servings: 10

Ingredients

• 2 cups fresh or frozen strawberries, hulled
• 2 cups fresh or frozen mango chunks
• 2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar, divided (1/4 cup per fruit layer)
• 1 1/2 cups whole milk, divided (1/2 cup per fruit layer)
• 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, divided (1 tablespoon per fruit layer)
• Pinch of salt per layer

Instructions

1. Prepare the strawberry layer. Blend strawberries, 1/4 cup sugar, 1/2 cup milk, 1 tablespoon lemon juice, and a pinch of salt until completely smooth. Pour into a 9x13-inch pan or a large loaf pan and freeze for 1 hour, until firm.
2. Prepare the mango layer. Rinse the blender, then blend mango, 1/4 cup sugar, 1/2 cup milk, 1 tablespoon lemon juice, and a pinch of salt until smooth. Pour gently over the frozen strawberry layer and return to the freezer for 1 hour.
3. Prepare the blueberry layer. Rinse the blender, then blend blueberries, 1/4 cup sugar, 1/2 cup milk, 1 tablespoon lemon juice, and a pinch of salt until smooth. Pour gently over the frozen mango layer.
4. Final freeze. Cover the pan with plastic wrap and freeze at least 2 more hours, or overnight, until completely set throughout.
5. Scoop and serve. Remove from the freezer 5 minutes before serving to soften slightly. Scoop into bowls or cones and serve immediately. For a party, use an ice cream scoop to layer all three colors into each bowl for the full rainbow effect.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 115 | Protein: 2g | Fat: 1g | Carbs: 27g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 35mg