Scream Sorbet: Fruity Frozen Farmers Market Delight

IMG_1012Scream Sorbet is sharing the love at 17 farmers markets in the Bay Area: The love of true, pure, frozen flavors. Their mission is to make the best sorbet in the world, and I think they may be doing it! Imagine local, seasonal, mostly-organic fruit transformed, at the peak of perfection, into a dense, smooth, creamy scoop of frozen delight. Just fruit, sugar, water and–occasionally–pectin.

They are just beginning to usher out the vibrant winter citrus flavors (goodbye, Meyer lemon, Oro Blanco grapefruit, and lime-mint) and welcome the luscious flavors of summer (hello apricot, cherry-rhubarb, and strawberry). Some flavors know no season: chocolate (made with top-of-the-line Blanxart organic chocolate), cashew-caramel, pistachio. These nut flavors are astonishing: so creamy and thick, you’d swear a cow was involved.

Six flavors are featured at each farmers market, a teasingly small fraction of the 35 listed on the website. Many flavors are inventive, even visionary: I tried the coconut-lime-Thai basil and was dazzled by the interplay of tangy lime and herbaceous basil embraced by round buttery coconut milk. On my wish list: saffron-almond, coconut-lemongrass, beet-lemon, and pomegranate-blueberry. And the other thirty flavors.

They work the magic in an Emeryville catering kitchen and roam the Bay Area, from San Rafael to Monterey, where I was lured in by their very generous sampling policy, characterized by the following phrases: “anything else?” “try another” “here, try this.”