In 1950 my husband and I bought a small western Massachusetts farm. I had never been on a farm. I was a city girl, and when we bought a family cow, I had no idea how much milk even a passable cow could provide. As anyone – at least anyone who has lived on a farm – knows, it came by the bucketful, twice a day. A friend gave me a cream separator and a butter churn. I made butter and we had whipped cream, but I still had plenty of cream left over.

Then my mother-in-law gave me the following recipe for lemon sherbet. The children loved it, and I almost always had some in the freezer. Ironically, once we finally had a herd and began selling milk, there was no cream at all, only a little milk for family needs. However, I learned that if I froze a can of evaporated milk, then let it thaw slightly and whipped it, the sherbet was just as good as with the sweet cream.