The Pleasures of Local Ice Cream
By Jenn | September 2, 2008
With the goal of presenting a fully-researched blog post and in the name of hardcore investigative journalism (hats off to you, Geraldo, for teaching me everything I know), I recently went to sample Blue Marble ice cream. Jenn and I ambled over to the Boreum Hill (Brooklyn) scoop shop which declares itself “An enthusiastically kid- and earth-friendly eatery offering farm fresh organic ice cream, organic fair-trade coffees, premium hand crafted teas, all natural baked goods.” All good stuff!
Their dairy is sourced from two local producers, Ronnybrook Farms in Ancramdale, New York, and Natural By Nature in Lancaster PA. Fourth-generation ice cream maker (what a dynasty!) Matt White makes their ice cream, on a small farm in the Hudson Valley. They try to use local add-ins when possible, such as incorporating Irving Farm Coffee into their coffee flavors. We, of course, got our ice cream in cones instead of cups, but Blue Marble provides corn-based compostable disposables for those who choose that route. They also have a lovely secret garden out back where we sat and enjoyed the summer night.
This is all well and good, but how was the ice cream? It was EXCELLENT. Pure bliss! It was the most cream-tasting ice cream I’ve ever had, and made me realize how much flavor is lost in the production of the industrial brands. I’m pretty sure it was the best ice cream I’ve ever had. You should go, now. And I’ll go with you. And Karina will come along, too, of course.
[Image by laffy4K via Creative Commons]
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Topics: Food |
I fully endorse local ice cream!
Perhaps local ice cream is the Official Platform of Team Tiny Choices?
I will attest to the wonderful and delicious qualities of Blue Marble ice cream and back yard.
What a fine way to spend an afternoon, and to support both yourself with good eats and local agriculture with their ingredient choices. Those compostable cups sound cool. Can you eat those too?
I’ve recently fallen in love with another compostable product - Verterra plates. They make them out of leaves, water, and that’s it. I put them to serious use this weekend with extra messy food, and I could almost hear the plates scoffing at it, coming out clean after I washed them. And I hear you can bake with them! Haven’t tried that yet. You can check them out at www.verterra.com
Yumm! Good for the environment and soul. Kudos to a business with sincerity and and a sense of fun. I can only imagine how wonderful the shop smells….
One definition of “environment” is “all living an non-living things that occur naturally on earth.” All living things include animals–and there is no question that cows suffer emotionally and physically during the production of milk. (To produce milk, dairy farmers annually impregnate cows, take away the calves two days after birth, and milk them so hard that they live only a third of the natural life span. I won’t even get into the environmental impact caused by CAFOs.) How about a review of non-dairy ice cream for a change of pace, such as Wheeler’s Black Label Ice Cream, the vegan ice cream made from nut butters at Candle 79 or Blossom’s ice cream, Dairy Queen’s vegan ice cream bar or best yet, make your own vegan ice cream! It’s super easy, so cheap your ice cream maker pays for itself in one batch, it tastes amazing, and you can have fun inventing new flavors. For the 4th of July, I made blueberry banana vegan icecream and coconut sorbet and it was delicious and beautiful. Anyway, Tiny Choices is such a thoughtful and caring blog. I’m hopeful that being so thoughtful, you will be willing to consider animals more when you make suggestions about helping the environment–animals are a big part of the environment and, nowadays, there are so many tiny choices that you can make to prevent their suffering while enjoying yourself too.
thanks for that post. I think I’ve had my head in the sand about how cows suffer so that I can have milk/butter/cheese.
can you suggest a place to go for recipes for vegan ice cream?
Hey Lori– I want to thank you for your thoughtful and insightful comment. I do think often about the dairy situation, and how even though I’m a vegetarian I still directly support the torture of animals by not going whole-hog (as it were) and becoming vegan. While it’s not a choice I’m ready to make yet, it’s definitely in my conciousness and something I could write about more here.
It’d be wonderful if you’d like to write up a vegan ice cream/sorbet post for us — interested?
xo
I don’t do the ice cream, but this place http://empireicecream.net/index.htm has been rocking my vegan world with stellar local sorbets including carrot-chili that they made at my insistence that the non-dairy flavors be as wonderfully exciting as the ice cream flavors.
VERY EXCITING NEWS. i haven’t tried it yet but
http://www.lulassweetapothecary.com/
New all vegan local ice-cream parlor in manhattan!
This IS VERY EXCITING NEWS! Thanks for the heads-up… I can’t wait to try it!