Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Oliver - Our Aspiring Ice Cream Man



Oliver, who has an interest in commercial ice cream production using pasteurized milk from our farm's organic dairy, attended the country's most highly acclaimed ice cream course in early January.
Held at Penn State, this intense, week-long course had over 125 attendees from the United States as well as 12 foreign countries.

Sheridan and I (Joy) served as Oliver's traveling buddies so between classes, Oliver would fill my ears with talk of sampling dozens of ice creams to cultivate the students' ability to discern quality ingredients. This, however, was just about the only thing I understood when he'd share what he had learned. The classes were primarily about chemistry, science, microbiology, and lots of math formulas. Oliver would come back to the room and spend all night just working on math formulas involving ingredient ratios.

The class concluded with a 3 hour exam where his knowledge was measured against those from other countries that Oliver said, "were much better mathematicians than their U.S. classmates."

We were absolutely thrilled to have recently received an email from Oliver's instructors
that said,

"Your final rank was, NO KIDDING, 11th."

We're super proud of Oliver's hard work and glad to be enjoying the fruit (cream) of his labor as he makes one yummy batch of ice cream after another.



Sheridan and I enjoyed spending the week just sitting around the hotel, reading, sewing, and playing. This is a "quilt" Sheridan sewed especially for the cheerful hotel employee who served at the continental breakfast each morning.

We're excited to see what doors the Lord might open for Oliver as he pursues this possible career path.

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