Lizzy's Ice Cream in Waltham

On Thursday, December 18, Rachel celebrated her thirtieth birthday. Our lack of motivation to get out of the house dampened our plans to get to the Institute of Contemporary Art (FYI: my motivation will be in full swing when the Shepard Fairey -- of the oh-so-famous Andre the Giant Obey and iconic Obama Hope Poster -- show comes to the ICA on February 6, 2009) , as did an advertisement in the window of a hair salon as we walked from my house to the commuter rail. It was an ad for Ugandan food. "Cool," we said, as we postponed our train ride and walked down Moody Street to Karibu (a must try). After a filling shared plate of Ugandan food (beef stew, beans, rice, yams, sweet potatoes...) we decided it was time for a birthday sweet.

Further down Moody Street we traveled to Lizzy's Homemade Ice Cream (yes, we did visit the one in Cambridge a while back in another post) I tasted some Eggnog Ice Cream and Pumpkin Pie Ice Cream -- both were good but tasted a bit icy to me. I wonder if they use eggs in their ice cream? I think not. I have written to ask but still no word 11 days later...

Their ice cream is quite good, but not as custardy and rich as I prefer. In all honesty, I have a palette that prefers the sweetest, richest ice cream...Not that I would not go to Lizzy's again. It's good stuff, even if it isn't as custardy as my most favorite ice creams.

Rachel and I both had Mint Oreo ice cream -- yum. This is way up there with my Mint Girl Scout Cookie Ice Cream -- actually, it is very similar, except theirs uses Oreos instead of Thin Mints. I should post this recipe for my Mint Girl Scout, which is a variation from a recipe in the Ben and Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream and Dessert Book.

Rachel had a cone, which as Tina notes, is a much better way to take in the flavor than the bowl that I had. Either way, the ice cream was good and neither of us minded the subfreezing temperatures outside while we were inside eating our frozen goodness.

Happy thirtieth, Rachel!

15 Mile Weekend with Two Scoops of Ice Cream

This weekend was quite a crazy one. I went down to NYC on Friday with Kevin to visit Ashu. Saturday we walked up to the Guggenheim and then walked all the way down to the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory (to see our estimated route, click here). Seeing as we had walked some on Friday and at least a couple of miles today, and our route (especially across Central Park) on gmap wasn't perfect, we estimate about a 15 mile walk total this weekend...so I am not going to feel too badly about the two different ice cream places I sampled this weekend.

Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory

The reward at the end of crossing the Brooklyn Bridge was a sweet and creamy one. As we walked into the quaint little shop that was once a Fulton Ferry fireboat house, we stood for about 5-10 minutes in line -- a line that was 1. Much shorter than the one we passed at Grimaldi's Pizza on the way to the Factory, and 2. much shorter than the line that was there when we walked out with our ice cream. The line gave us time to take in the atmosphere -- a simple shop that has probably changed little since it was first opened October 13, 2001 (Interestingly enough, the shop was slated to open September 12, 2001, but the events of September 11th inevitably changed that). The focus of this shop is it's smooth, eggless (one might say "Philadelphia Style") ice cream, not the atmosphere in which it sits. The shop though clean, is cluttered with freezers and there isn't too much room to sit down. It is fine this way, as the best way to savor your ice cream is to go outside and enjoy the view of the Manhattan Skyline, and as one most likely does, lament on the broken skyline's missing twin towers.

The eggless ice cream is this way because eggs, owner Mark Thompson believes, give ice cream a "greasy flavor." Instead he uses a Pennsylvania recipe -- a recipe he found sans eggs.With only eight flavors, one isn't overwhelmed with choices, which is a relief this day and age. When I got to the counter I asked for vanilla chocolate chunk, but the kid at the counter told me they were out. Kind of disappointed, but also knowing any of these flavors would be good, I changed my cone to the same as Ashu's -- chocolate chocolate chunk. The ice cream wasn't a disappointment: rich, creamy, and just the perfect amount to satiate my sweet tooth and refuel us for our walk back across the bridge. A taste of Kevin's vanilla was lighter, and just sweet enough. A taste of the vanilla made me wish that they hadn't run out of the vanilla chocolate chunk -- I can imagine that would have been ice cream perfection. But alas, I still can't complain. It was good either way.


Pinkberry

While my passion is ice cream, my husband Kevin enjoys a good hot dog, and Ashu indulged us by taking us to some hot dog hot spots. Friday we found Papaya Dog in Hell's Kitchen as we walked from the bus station to Ashu's apartment, Saturday we stopped at a few street vendors, and today she took us uptown to Brooklyn Diner at 57th Street (where they weren't yet serving hot dogs but we indulged in some yummy breakfast as well as a Christopher Meloni sighting) and then up to Gray's Papaya on Broadway at 72nd to try their world renowned hot dogs and see their big sign in the window that supports Obama (Ashu is a huge fan!).

Alas, I digress. While on our way back from Gray's, we saw a Pinkberry (warning: you might want to turn off the sound; this site is kind of annoying!) and after Ashu's negative raving, I had to try. Though not actually an ice cream, but a frozen yogurt, Ashu tells me this is all the rave in the city and the lines at the shop we passed on Saturday proved case in point.

We walked into the stark, clean, stylish shop. There was one other customer in the shop, but he was gone minutes after we arrived. What I found so strange is that this woman took my order (I was the only one that ordered) and she took my name -- as if she would lose my order in the empty restaurant (Later I saw they had printed a little label with my name and stuck it on my cup -- I guess it would be useful when the shop was busy.) I ordered a original with raspberries ($3.95 plus 95¢ for a topping) and the server actually put my order on a scale! Then she used tongs to carefully place about 10 raspberries on the yogurt. The yogurt was just that: frozen yogurt. It wasn't the sweet, ice cream-tasting soft serve you get when you usually order frozen yogurt. It tasted cultured like actual yogurt that had been frozen. It had a bit of a lemony taste. The best part was the amazingly fresh raspberries. I agreed with Ashu in the sense I couldn't understand the lines. It wasn't that good. But it wasn't terrible. Just not something I would choose again. But as Ashu says "If someone were holding a gun to my head, and telling me to eat it, I'd eat it, but..."

Well, enough of ice cream eating in NYC...

Additional information for this post found in the article "Fire and Ice Cream" from the New York Times, Novemeber 25, 2001.
Thanks to Kevin for such great photos and Ashu for being a great tour guide!

City of Brotherly Love...

I know in past posts I have referred to "Philadelphia Style Ice Cream" which I was under the impression was ice cream made without a custard (egg) base.

A few weekends ago, I was down in Philadelphia for the first time, and had Bassett's famous ice cream at Reading Terminal Market. Not usually a fan of eggless ice cream as I think it tastes like frozen whipped cream, I was surprised by the lack of whipped cream taste in the mint chocolate chip I had ordered. When I got back to Boston, I wrote to Bassett's to confirm that this really was "Philadelphia Style" as I knew it and got this reply:

Thank you for your inquiry. Actually, what makes the vanilla "Philadelphia-style" is the vanilla bean specks in the ice cream, so both our vanilla and French vanilla (made with egg yolks) are "Philadelphia-style" ice creams. If you are unsure about a flavor, you can check out our ingredients on the Flavors page of our web site--Bassetts Ice Cream - Since 1861.

Hm. This is not what I thought. In fact, I had never heard of anything of the sort. I checked out the ingredient list [Cream, Milk, Sugar, Corn Syrup, Chocolate Chips (Sugar, Chocolate Liquor, Cocoa Butter, Soy Lecithin,Vanilla), Nonfat Milk, Green Coloring (F. D. & C. Yellow No. 5, F. D. & C. Green No. 3), Guar Gum, Xanthan Gum, Carrageenan, Soy Lecithin, Oil of Peppermint] there were no eggs to speak of, but I still felt shakey on the definition of "Philadelphia Style" I had always known.

I decided to write to Turkey Hill, makers of my favorite brand of commercially made ice cream, who happen to be located in Lancaster, Pennsylvania (they should know something about Philadelphia AND ice cream, right?) Unbeknownst to me, Turkey Hill has their own "Philadelphia Style" ice cream so their answer wasn't too helpful either:

This is our All Natural line of ice cream. This ice cream is made with cream, milk, sugar and all natural flavors. Philadelphia Style is just the name that was chosen for this line.

Ok, ok, but Turkey Hill does have a blog with an ice cream expert named Ernie, so I decided to check there. Here's a snippet of the answer on the blog:

Traditionally, Philadelphia style ice creams are milk and cream-based mixtures which contain no eggs. This means the ice cream is less rich, but it has a more intense flavor. The style is also known for using pure, natural ingredients and some Philadelphia Style ice cream mixtures are also cooked before they are frozen. Of course, all of this is in contrast to “French Style” ice cream which uses eggs and is sometimes also referred to as a custard.

Well, at least Ernie is on my side! Thanks, Ernie!

I began to think about where I got this initial impression, and it turns out that our favorite ice cream author Bruce Weinstein distinguishes eggless ice cream as "Philadelphia Style". On the first page of his Introduction in The Ultimate Ice Cream Book, Weinstein writes "There are two basic styles of ice cream in this book: custard style ice cream (some times called "frozen custard," "French ice cream," or "gelato"), which is made with eggs; and Philadelphia-style ice cream, which is made without eggs." Well there it is folks. Weinstein's book being a favorite, and somewhat of a bible, and in fact only the second ice cream book purchase, I learned early on this definition of "Philadelphia Style."

However, only one of my ten other ice cream books actually talked of "Philadelphia Style." In Ice Cream: The Whole Scoop, Gail Damerow (another one of my ice cream author heros) writes in her glossary:

Philadelphia ice cream--ice cream containing only cream, sugar and flavoring; also, vanilla ice cream flavored with visible vanilla seeds or crushed vanilla pods.

Whew. So I am still not quite sure of the exact definition. Damerow seems to kind of combine both Weinstein and Turkey Hill's definition with that of Bassett's. This makes me a little reassured but also a little weary, since Bassett's so directly told me their "Philadelphia Style" has egg yolks and I am under the impression that Bassett's is the defining ice cream of Philadelphia.

I'm interested in your opinion. What defines "Philadelphia Style" to you? Would especially love to hear from you Philadelphian's!

On another note, as I was looking for some specific ice cream images, I came across this beautiful water color on PaperandThreads Blog that I just had to share. Lovely work! There is just something so wonderful in its simplicity, as in much of this artist's work. I hope he/she doesn't mind my sharing!