Guest Post: Wai Wai, Chinatown, Boston

Bethany's husband takes us to Chinatown in Boston for his favorite ice cream...

I was in Boston's Chinatown last night and realized that one of my all time favorite ice cream places EVER was one block over. The sign had changed since I last visited about a decade ago, but it's still there. Wai Wai on Oxford St:


It's below street level and the first thing you see is roasted duck, but don't let that fool you. To the left of the duck is a small ice cream case and the only flavor I've ever tried is Coconut. I never want to risk any other flavor just because the Coconut is so singularly awesome.

Bethany would use fancier words to describe this, but it super soft, very coconutty, and I noticed a few small ice chunks in it. Whatever is in this ice cream, they should keep doing it, and I'll keep stepping in whenever I can.

[Scoopalicious is celebrating National Ice Cream month with a Post-A-Day throughout the month of July!]

SpiceDish Saturday {May}: Strawberry Frozen Yogurt

We love us some SpiceDish Saturdays and we are so happy it's that time of month! I am especially excited for this one because my strawberries are growing like weeds (um, yeah...) and flowering like crazy. So, if Ernie the dog doesn't eat them, I'll have to make some of this when our strawberries start to appear...Thanks EB!

Okay folks, so it’s the beginning of strawberry season around these parts and I’m a sucker for ‘em. I always have been. I was not a Barbie girl. I was a Strawberry Shortcake girl. There’s just something about those little, dimple covered bombs of deliciousness. This recipe highlights the first, sweet berries of the season and is just the right balance of tart to that sweet.

Strawberry Frozen Yogurt

1 lb organic strawberries, chopped into small pieces
1 cup of sugar
1 ½ tsp lemon juice
The zest of 1 lemon
1 cup cream-top whole milk plain yogurt

Cover the strawberries with the sugar, add the lemon juice and the lemon zest. Stir well. Let sit for about 30-45 minutes. Squish the mixture with a potato masher until it resembles jam. Refrigerate for 30 minutes. Stir in the yogurt and mix well. Freeze according to your mixer’s directions.

SpiceDish Saturday {December}: Banana Spice Snap

Last month we started SpiceDish Saturday. Can't believe a month has gone by, but it has! I think the picture to the left is proof that we need not wait another minute to make this ice cream -- it looks SO yummy! So I will stop talking and give to you another recipe from the Ab Fab EB...AFEB...hmmm....

Call it a sign of the economic times, but I find that most of my recipes lately consist of leftovers or pantry items that I try to stretch as far as possible. This ice cream was no different.... and surprisingly led to great tasting results. Trying to rid myself of at least a few of the dozens of frozen bananas I have in the freezer, I decided to make banana ice cream. When making banana ice cream it's actually very important to use bananas that have been previously frozen (I could go into an Alton Brown like spiel here but lets just say it has to do with the formation of ice crystals and move on). I wanted to add some oomph to the banana with spices because, well, I love spice ice cream so I added ginger and then one upped the spice factor with a few crumbled ginger snaps I had sitting in the pantry. This is a surprisingly rich, creamy and decadent ice cream that also happens to be pretty easy to put together! Enjoy.


Banana Spice Snap

3/4 cup whole milk
1 3/4 cups heavy cream
1 cup sugar
4 egg yolks
1 ½ cups mashed banana that has been frozen and thawed (fresh banana will turn into frozen ice chunks!)
1 cup ginger snaps, broken in pieces
1 tbsp ground ginger
1 dash nutmeg
1 tsp vanilla

Warm the milk, sugar and ginger in a saucepan. When sugar is dissolved, remove from heat. Pour cream into a bowl and set a strainer on top of the bowl. In another bowl, whisk yolks. Add a few tbsp's of the milk to the yolks and whisk. Slowly add rest of the milk while whisking constantly. Pour mixture back into saucepan. Heat on medium. Stir the mixture with a wooden spoon, until mixture thickens and coats the spoon. Be sure to stir constantly so eggs don't harden. Pour the mixture, through the strainer, into the cream. Stir in well mushed banana and vanilla. (For a smoother texture, blend in blender). Cool over ice, then put in the fridge to cool completely. When cold, freeze in ice cream mixer (according to directions). 5 minutes before finished, add cookie pieces. If soft, ripen in the freezer for a few hours.

Thanks, AFEB!

P.S. Check out SpiceDish's site for some "Rubberized Awesomeness" -- totally up our alley. Really, this is rated G, people (as my friend Ashu would say).

New Feature: Spice Dish Saturday!

A while back the oh-so-fabulous Cakespy introduced us to EB of SpiceDish...with that introduction, we found a new friend, a charming person, and a ice cream maker a la mode! (ok, I just made up that expression -- what I am trying to say is she is AWESOME.) After following her wonderful blog and all the recipes she creates and/or tries, Tina and I had a wonderful idea -- let's invite SpiceDish to be a monthly guest blogger. So we asked and she said "yes!" How lucky we are!

Without further ado, here is the first installment of SpiceDish Saturday!

This is an ice cream for the adults out there who find themselves pulling melted skittles out of their carpets, bubble gum wads stuck in sox and new cavities in their kid's heads. This is a treat to that will use up that bit of pumpkin you have leftover from muffin making, the dregs of cocoa you haven't made hot chocolate with and what's leftover in those pumpkin heads full of 'fun-size' candy bars. It may feature kid-sized candy bits but its flavor is most decidedly adult. The deep chocolate base with a hint of vegetal pumpkin flavor both spiced by cinnamon is decadent all by itself, but the candy bits bring back those holiday memories.

Cocoa-Pumpkin Ice Cream With Goodies! (aka Holiday Aftermath)

1 cup whole milk

1 cup heavy cream

¼ cup dutch cocoa powder

¾ cup sugar

¼ cup pumpkin puree

½ tsp cinnamon

Pinch of salt

Mixed mini-candy bars, chopped

In a saucepan add the milk, sugar, cocoa and salt. Heat while whisking until it froths up. Turn off the heat and add the pumpkin. Stir in. Chill until cold then freeze in your ice cream maker. 5 minutes before it is finished churning add the candy pieces. Enjoy!

We will enjoy! Thanks EB and welcome!

Beautiful photos courtesy of EB of SpiceDish as well!

Guest Blog: Beijing Black Sesame

What is the ice cream experience like abroad? We have Japanese Ice Cream and Ice Cream Ireland to tell us something about it, but it's always nice when our traveling friends taste ice cream in different countries and tell of their experiences. Husband was in China last week on business, and he graciously bought ice cream at the Beijing Airport and wrote us a guest posting. If you have international ice cream stories to tell, please do tell -- we'd love to share your story.

I was walking through Beijing International Terminal 2, debating if I had bought enough souvenirs for my awesome, sexy wife when I noticed this:

I didn't have much room in my luggage, but I did have room in my stomach, so I figured I could try bringing back an ice cream post from China. Plus, if I load it up with enough compliments about Bethany and her incredibly smart and talented partner, Tina, they'd post anything.

First off China does a few things right and service is one of them. In the USA, this little stand would have been staffed by one unhappy teenager trying to avoid looking at you. Customers = work, right? This stand had two enthusiastic women scanning the crowds. The guys at the right were just standing around looking at some lights on the wall, my guess is that they were monitoring the delicate ice cream computers. At this point, I've wandered a bit closer so that both women are smiling, waving, and trying to offer me samples. I start scannng the case and they hand me a tasting spoon of coffee ice cream, easily one of my favorite flavors ever that I didn't even see in the case yet. How did they do that? There must be an ancient Chinese art of flavor identification.



The coffee was pretty good, but I could get that anywhere. I kept looking in the case and something else caught my eye in the back corner. Black sesame. Now if any of you know my dazzling wife, you'll know the only type of sesame she ever liked was the street, and even then she would have reminded you how much she doesn't like the seeds. Bethany wasn't here, so I bought the smallest size of black sesame for 25 RMB, thanked them in my nonexistent Chinese and walked away.

Ok, now take some time to look at this picture very closely and you'll see something very unfortunate:



Got it?
That's right.
Seat 44L, which is soon to be one crappy seat in the back corner on a 14-hour flight to Newark.

The ice cream. Now I am notoriously bad at identifying Bethany's archnemesis of seeds, which is probably why I had no idea what this tasted like. It had a great texture, but then this other flavor kicked in and stayed. I think the best part was the blue-grey color, which I hadn't seen since I tried squid ink ice cream with a friend in Hokkaido. That had decidedly more color than taste. This has decidely more taste than color, and I also wasn't too happy with where this taste wanted me to go. It was like my poor little taste buds had just gotten into some sketchy van.

Anyway, the taste let up when I finished the cup, which was good news since it was going to be a while before I'd get on the plane and the food cart would make it all the way back to 44L. The ladies probably knew me better than I did; next time I'll stick with the coffee. All of the other flavors in the case had been pretty common, with some green tea ice cream thrown in to round out the Asian experience. The next time I'm in this terminal I think I'll get one of those other flavors, unless they come up with another color that looks like it shouldn't be ice cream.

Disclaimer: Despite the lovely things said about both Tina and me, we had nothing to do with the content of this posting and, though accurate, we did not edit this piece to make ourselves look better!

Our first guest blogger says "Scream All"

Who doesn't have fond memories of that jingle coming from the ice cream truck down the street? Or the begging Mom for one more quarter (aging ourselves I know!)? We're excited to have our first guest blogger, and dear friend, share his colorful memories and the fact that he was nicknamed Spaghetti...you'd appreciate that if you knew him! Got memories? Feel free to share and thanks Steve.

I'm a baby boomer. Today when I hear the ice cream truck approaching the neighborhood I am instantly taken back to a simpler time. My childhood in the inner city.

Like Richard Pryor's classic routine, my friends would be whipped into a full blown frenzy at the sound of the bells, and start shouting at the top of our lungs. That's why my dad called the stuff "scream all."

It could be the bottom of the ninth on the sandlot, tie score, winning run on third and two out. When we heard those bells we'd drop everything and make a crazed dash for the truck. My best pal Marc nickname Meatball (I was Spaghetti) once fell and broke his arm while pursuing the Good Humor man. He got up, and in a state of euphoria continued running, bought his treat, savored it, and only then did he allow his mother to take him to the emergency room. The cast was his badge of honor that summer.

The other neighborhood truck was Uncle Sam's Ice Cream. While the Good Humor truck glistened, the driver was starched and friendly, and his ice cream fresh, Uncle Sam's was a different story. He drove a battered relic, smelt of bad whiskey, and was the Soup Nazi of scream all. His fare was covered with freezer burn. We didn't care. On one occasion a push pop from him caused me to swell up like a dirigible.

My third option was the local Carvel stand. On Mondays their summertime special was fruit salad sundaes for 99 cents. I'd plan my day around them. One at 3, another after dinner, and a third before closing.

Ice cream is like a delicious Rorschach Test. For me it will always trigger sweet memories.

Steve Steinberg, aka Spaghetti, (at left) is a Senior Vice President of Marketing at Jones Lang LaSalle, as well as an ice cream connoisseur and all around good guy.

Image of Spaghetti and Meatball courtesy of Steve Steinberg. Image of ice cream truck treats by Kevin Rosseel on MorgueFile.