We have a slave … blah! I mean teenager visiting us. She’s been helping out tremendously. The kids think she’s pretty swell. Lucy has aged at least six years to keep up. Last night the kids kicked us out of the kitchen and made dinner. I sat sipping wine reading the Economist. Zélie set off for bed just in time for me to have a moment without any human or animal seeking my attention. Brent was supposed to relax as well.  He, however, was running around with the manic mechanic oiling, lubing whatever you do with tractors.  Seeing as France closes for August, if a mechanic shows up at your door, you really must drop everything and put him to work.  He did make it in time for dinner which was delicious.

 (notice, still no dishwasher!)

Otto made a large stack of bread for his contribution.

I’ve been working on some new ice cream to help with our hot days. The violette ice cream is coming along nicely. A few tweaks and I may be on to something. Ms. Teen UK doesn’t like floral ice cream. Brent asked her to give me an ice cream flavor. Make it challenging. “Chocolate,” she says. After a little sass, she came up with Smurf ice cream. I’ve never heard of this stuff. After a few minutes on a savvy search engine, all signs point to Blue Moon ice cream. From what I can tell, you make vanilla ice cream, add blue and add some secret smurfy flavor (something in the fruit family). Then you top it with gummy smurfs or embed them just like Han Solo in carbonite. The result was smurfy blue surprise. Actually it came out more green than blue. And when you make ice cream you MUST make meringues. Smurf meringues! They go in the oven all blue and come out like sad little boogers, but taste just smurfy.