Today’s guest post comes from Beth-Ann
“I scream . You scream. We all scream for ice cream.”
Proust may have had his madelines, but my sweetest taste memories melt together with ice cream in the bottom of a dish. How many spoonfuls before it’s all gone?
1) My Manhattan grandmother lived across from a playground where a formally dressed Good Humor man stood with his push cart. I still remember the combined taste of wooden spoon and chocolate ice cream from a cup.
2) My other grandmother would take us to Coney Island for dizzying rides and real frozen custard. I chose based on color-often picking pistachio because of its electric green hue.
3) Back in the city we’d go to Broadway matinees and afterwards a stop at Schrafft’s for Black and White parfaits with rich whipped cream complementing the hot fudge and the always vanilla ice cream.
4) Did anybody else go to Farrell’s? My clearest member of the overly enthusiastic, piano player, straw boater, parlor was the trough of ice cream you could get to share with your friends.
5) I babysat for a little boy who spent most of his childhood in a hospital. Every time I took him to Baskin Robbins he chose orange sherbet from all 31 flavors.
6) There was a place in the suburbs of DC where the whipped cream was pink, yellow, and green and all the sundaes were named after memorials. We never ordered the Washington Monument. The sundae was too tall for us.
7) College in Boston brought ice cream options previously unexplored. Saturday lunch in Harvard Square was often a hot fudge sundae at Bailey’s. The ice cream was on a pedestal with low sides and the hot fudge dripped onto the plate with the melting ice cream.
8) Even more amazing was Steve’s, the first shop to churn its own ice cream and allow you to mix in fruit, candy, etc to customize your flavor. The process was slow and even in the winter the lines stretched outside. Still, we came and gloried in making our own sensational flavors.
9) Minnesota introduced me to buckets of ice cream, the Schwann’s man, and malts at the State Fair.
10) I was runner-up in a Kemps contest to design a Minnesota ice cream flavor. They never made Gopher Tornado, but the ribbons of raspberry and pineapple together with the rich ice cream would have delighted me.
11) Kemp’s has a new contest. This time my entry is for Mini donut ice cream. If that isn’t memorable enough for you, make up your own flavor before June 12th.
How many spoonfuls of ice cream are in your memory?
Trail Baboon 
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Holly, this is amazing. I never knew there were verses for this song. What a great start to the day. Ice cream for breakfast.
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I never heard this tune before, either! Thanks, Holly – although, now I’m kinda hungry… š
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ice cream for me was a home based enterprise. we had bridgemans here and i would get the one with pink and green flecks in it, my brother always ordered chocolate, can you imagine. i came home from school every day and had what my my told me was a tin roof with 3 scoops of vanilla a layer of chocolate sauce and a giant handful of peanuts. that and 2 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were all i need to make it til dinner for a couple of years there. will sebastian joes get a little increase in business this week with the sun out. maybe just today form the baboons with a taste to fulfill
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two notes, game night needs to be moved, big birthday party on 6/6 and also a the announcement of baboontunes the new wp music blog. i dont know what to do with it but i bet ill figure it out.
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Very cool news about the new blog, I know I’ll be checking that out regularly! Thanks Tim!
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There are so many memories. The most recent is a moment from Liam’s visit in March. We took him to Choo Choo Bob’s, where there are about 12 separate toy train layouts that kids can play with. Molly and I watched Liam, just turned two, as he played with train sets for nearly three hours. It was finally time to get back home, but getting this kid out of that little train heaven wasn’t going to be smooth. Izzy’s Ice Cream Parlor is just a few doors from Choo Choo Bob’s. We told Liam we’d take him for some ice cream.
He protested, weeping. He didn’t want to leave. And he kept saying, “I hate ice cream!
We got him into the ice cream parlor and put a sundae in front of him.
“I HATE ice cream,” howled Liam.
Molly and I ate our ice cream in silence.
Liam went on protesting, his face red and all his muscles tight.
Then when he thought we weren’t looking, Liam took one tiny taste.
(Silence)
“Ice cream,” said Liam, reflectively.
He took another bite.
“Hmmmmm, ice cream!” said Liam brightly.
His spoon began to fly.
“I LOVE ice cream,” said Liam.
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What a sweet story!
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Ah Izzys-our reward destination. Just went there after the 7th grade awards presentation.
We also used to go after shots at the doctor. I suspect we will also go after the braces get put on.
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How funny – the prospect of getting some ice cream causes a tantrum, instead of getting cranky after being told “No ice cream for you!” But that tantrum was doomed to fail. Nobody can resist the allure of ice cream! š
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LOVE Izzy’s.
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adorable! you can lead a child to ice cream…and he will eat it
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Rise and Shine Baboons!
I grew up in the Ice Cream Capital of Blue Bunny–LeMars, Iowa. So I have many ice cream memories. However, in the spirit of “modernization” they eliminated all old fashioned ice cream parlors when I grew up. They have now re-created that parlor with a little museum. When we toured the factory they would always give us a Drumstick or Ice Cream Bar as a sample. However, when you took the tour, inexplicably, they would demonstrate the manufacture of COTTAGE CHEESE instead of Ice Cream which is what kids were after. So we would look into giant vats of curds with paddles circulating instead of ice cream. I rarely eat cottage cheese as a result. Many friends and neighbors worked for Wells Blue Bunny through the years, too. Now my cousin’s husband is a Veep there (in charge of quality control). So my ice cream memories are heavily tilted towards these local experiences in my hometown.
Here my favorite parlor is the Pump House on Chicago Ave next to Turtle. Exquisite!
Love Blue Bunny “Bunny Tracks” flavor.
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They’ve done Moose Tracks ice cream as well as Bear Tracks, Cow Tracks (and Bunny Tracks, though I haven’t heard of that one before)…why not Baboon Tracks?
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Ben and Jerry do Chunky Monkey
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Remember Hull Ice cream in the green carton? Did Blue Bunny buy Hull? I’ve been to Hull. It is a little town near Rock Rapids, IA.
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I don’t remember Hull Ice Cream, but I know the town.
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The packaging was dark green and the vanilla ice cream was yellow.
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Nucci’s in Winnipeg-great gelato. We are great ice cream eaters. i love rum raisin and butter pecan. TCBY just doesn’t cut it, I’m afraid. My dad sold soft ice cream at his coffee shop for a while, but found there was more money in beer, so he sold the ice cream machines.
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Dang!
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Fictionalizing a memory:
Tuesday Evening in Town: a Memory
It’s a warm Tuesday evening, when the stores are open until 8:30. The Kunst family is parked on the main street of the business section, which is one long block long with some businesses up the side streets. Seven of the businesses are bars.
They are not here to shop, except for two purchases which they will make just before they go home. It is simply to have an evening out, which they do frequently on Tuesdays. The town has a festive feel on a night like this. They walk a bit themselves or sit in the car and watch. The primary viewing entertainment are the drunks. Being a railroad town, it has a higher than average share of excessive drinkers. Only a few years ago it was a company town, where U. S. Steel provided or controlled most of the businesses. Social stratification is still engendered by the jobs on the railroad and the professions in town, which leaves the few farmers out on their farms looking in.
In later years Clair and Maryann wonder if the parents brought them here as an object lesson on alcoholism. While some of the drunks are funny in a Laurel-and-Hardy manner, most are, even to small eyes, vaguely pathetic.
Kunst waves to one of the men as he lurches past. The man comes over to the window and shouts into the car directly in the mother’s face. āHowdy, Herman. This the little woman and kids? What yous up to?ā
The three children can see the tension across their mother’s back. She wants to lean away, but does not. It is not only the whiskey breath, but the word yous, which is a local expression that always sets her teeth on edge.
The father answers, āJus’ enjoyin’ the nice night, Dick, doin’ a little shoppin’.ā
The man loses interest and lurches off. Kunst continues, āMore money that didn’ make it home. Know he gambles too, plays poker in the back of The Dominoes.ā
āI know the railroad will write the paycheck to the wife if she goes in and proves her case,ā the mother responds.
āBet if she tried, Dick’d lay into her pretty good.ā
They are all silent for a minute or two. Then Kunst almost shouts in a awkwardly familial tone, āCome on YOUS, let’s go in the drug store and head home.ā He winks at the mother and laughs.
At home they gather at the kitchen table around their two ritual purchases. The first is the weekly Saturday Evening Post, which contrary to its title, comes out on Tuesdays. The family will each have turns at over the next few days, each finding parts they like.
The second purchase is a gallon of ice cream, a different flavor each week, but it could be butter brickle for Clair every week. They sit around the table, relaxed and enjoying the treat, feeling no need to talk. Then it is off to bed for the children.
Clair is always a bit disturbed by what he witnesses. Which suggests disturbing possibilities. Which suggests others could have bad lives to live. Which suggests that his father has some link to men such as the drunks on the street. Which all ends as he falls off to sleep.
āThe only emperor is the emperor of ice cream.ā
Wallace Stevens āThe Emperor of Ice Creamā
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Excellent, Clyde. Your writing style and what you wrote about reminds me of some of the writings of Fredrick Manfred that I very much like.
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I am ashamed to say I have not read him. I better. Wonder if the lousy BEC library has the good sense to carry him–bet not.
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John Rezmerski wrote a book that contains selections from most of Manfred’s writings along with information about Manfred and his writings. There is a collection of short stories by Manfred, titled The Chokecherry Tree, that has stories that particularly seem to me to be related to what you wrote, Clyde. Manfred grew up on a farm and wrote many stories about farms and small towns.
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Manfred was from Doone, IA and lived much of his life in my home town.
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Lovely Clyde-
Dad remembers the weekly trip to town for the family ice cream pick up too. Afraid I come from a family that made use of “yous”-the sort of thing my mother has completely obliterated from her vocabulary-a school teacher, I don’t hear much of an accent with her-but as Dad, the retired pastor is getting older and more tired, it is coming back with a vengence (no use of yous yet, however….)
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When I quit teaching in 1991 the TH kids were pluralizing their plural–youses.But at least they did not say water bubbler and rubber binder.
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A wonderfully painted vignette – thanks Clyde.
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Very nice, Clyde. š
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They use “youse” here in Waterville, too.
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what do youse guys say?
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I remember Farrell’s – the big (like bathtub sized) sundae was called a “zoo” as I recall, was carried out on a stretcher by four people, and they ran a siren when it came out (and ran it around the dining area). My brother got one for his birthday one year, but Farrell’s closed before I was “old enough” to order one for my friends and I to split.
I remember getting a scoop of vanilla with Hershey’s sauce as our go-to dessert with dinner when I was a kid. Also special trips to Dairy Queen on hot summer days (I as a chocolate dipped cone kinda gal – no sprinkles, just chocolate) or sometimes a bike ride to the Lake Harriet bandshell and its neighboring concession stand for drippy ice cream cones (3 flavors only – chocolate, vanilla and strawberry – I usually chose chocolate and having been disappointed one too many times by the overly sweet strawberry). I still mourn the loss of Liberty Custard, but with time, and a few scoops of Chocolate Coyote ice cream from Sebastian Joes, I might well get through my grief…
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Wow, a sundae that comes out on a stretcher…that’s a BIG sundae! We have a legendary old-fashioned ice cream parlor here in Florida which also does those BIG sundaes, but not quite THAT big! They’re called Jaxson’s and they are really good, all homemade ice cream and a very fun place to eat (web site: http://www.jaxsonsicecream.com/index.php ). The one they are best known for is called the Kitchen Sink, and it literally came out in a huge steel sink instead of a bowl! Now they have one called the Punch Bowl – something like 36 scoops of ice cream and nine toppings. It can be yours for only $99.95! š
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“In the old days” ice cream shops often had some kind of killer dish that was considered beyond the ability of the average person to consume. Some shops resorted to quite a bit of showmanship about this, so that if a kid ordered the “Atomic Bomb Sundae” or whatever it was called, the whole shop staff would parade around carrying it while sirens went off and lights flashed. Today’s servings are so humongous, I doubt that old tradition survives.
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I have personally never ordered one of those killer sundaes, Steve, but I will tell you this. If I ever did, and I was paying a hundred bucks for it, they had better put on some kind of show when they bring it to me!
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The “zoo” (or whatever it was called) was a creation meant to be shared by several people – I think they used a very large punch bowl for it. Once scoop of every ice cream flavor plus a bunch of toppings and I think possibly plastic animals (hence “the zoo”). Definitely *not* an eat it alone deal…
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Apparently there are still a couple of Farrell’s restaurants in California…if you scroll down a bit on this page, you can see “the zoo” (look for the guy in the monkey mask). Somehow this seems smaller than what I remember, but maybe the bowl just seemed bigger when I was six. http://www.farrellsusa.com/photo-gallery.php#yesterday
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Wise Acres (who bought Liberty) kept their custard machine(s) so you could still go there to get your fix.
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I could…haven’t yet…the first reports that I heard was that although they have the machines, the custard isn’t as good…
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Good morning. Ice cream is a major food group in my diet. There is almost always, with very very few excepts, at least one kind of ice cream in our freezer and I have at least one serving a day.
In Jackson, Michigan, where I grew up, we would go to the ice cream parlor at the Loud and Jackson dairy to get ice cream cones as a special treat. They made very good black cherry ice cream which we usually ordered and we sometimes also ordered a hand packed container of ice cream to take home with us. Another ice cream treat from my childhood was floats made by adding ice cream to Vernor’s ginger ale.
I don’t remember any ice cream street vendors that came to our house when I was a kid. I do remember that there was a truck that delivered ice to some homes that still used ice boxes as refrigerators. You could get free chips of ice from the back of that truck.
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My husband lived just south of that dairy on 112 N Durand St. He went to Bloomfield Elementary school. He loved black raspberry ice cream. He has a 6 pack of Vernors sitting in our kitchen. You really made his day, Jim.
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Wow! I lived on Cooper St. across from Austin Blair Elementary school and I was a graduate of Jackson High School in 1959. We lived in St Clair Shores, Michigan when I was in the 9th and 10th grades. We returned to Jackson, after living in St. Clair Shores, and resided in a more rural area on the edge of Jackson.
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I went to the malt shop one day about 25 years ago and they asked me what kind of malt I wanted so I told them I’d like a hot fudge peanut butter malt. We don’t have that she said. Do you have peanut butter? Yes do you have hot fudge? Then you can do it. Please go and ask real nice for a hot fudge peanut butter malt. They made it, it was delicious and the next time I went in it was on the menu. I don’t know if it is still there but man it was good
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tim, is there a movie script in that conversation?????
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Like!
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Heheheh…one of my favorite film moments. Double-like! š
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tim the trendsetter!
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In one of John Steinbeck’s novels a beer milk shake is order by a man who tis trying to find something to raise his spirits. In the novel the beer milk shake is just one more thing that goes bad for the guy who is having a bad day.
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ach, how could that be anything but wrong? Now, beer and tomato juice, that is another story….
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Bleah! If he’d just asked for a brandy chocolate milkshake he would’ve had a cut-rate Brandy Alexander and his day would have been vastly improved.
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now, a root beer float that may have helped him!
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tim, I like the “Please go and ask real nice for a hot fudge peanut butter malt.” and at the Malt Shop the waitress probably wasn’t as surly as Nicholson’s
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I just came back from a few days in Duluth (l would feel guilty if you thought I went up there to have FUN so let me assure you the main purpose of my visit was to start clearing out my packrat mother’s garage) and the last thing I did before driving home was go to the Portland Malt Shop. I’m not crazy about most of their ice cream and find their malts too cloyingly sweet, but the Dark Chocolate is really good and really chocolatey. There is not much that beats sitting by Lake Superior eating Dark Chocolate Ice Cream from the Portland Malt Shop. I’ve done it quite a few times and it seems like it is always a beautiful, sunny day in the 70s with a small, cool breeze coming off the lake.
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My wife is addicted to plastoid ice creams, especially McDonalds, with their coffee. It is an easy take-out purchase for her, with two McD’s within a mile of us.
My grandkids recently discovered the custard at Culvers. i had been planning to get them to Adele’s. Wish they had not left Mankato.
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Oops. Adele’s left Kato, not my grandkids, who are staying with us this week.
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Clyde, Carvel’s on the East Coast used to put their soft serve in the hot chocolate. Maybe Sandy could put her ice cream in the McD’s coffee.
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She puts real ice cream in coffee and in hot chocolate. The only flavor of ice cream she is aware is on the planet is vanilla. So she then adds things to it or it to things. There are about ten reasons she should not eat it at all.
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My sister and I were recently talking about how much we miss the Bridgeman restaurants in Duluth, especially the one by the Plaza in Duluth. Is the Plaza still there? Bet not. My sister lived very near there for her four years at UMD.
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My kids have no memory of Bridemans when in fact they often went to four of them. When you describe the restaurant to them, then they remember,
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Bridgeman’s turtle sundaes were the big treat I remember from my grade school years. I have very dim memories of going to Farrell’s as a little kid, but I remember the decor and costumes better than the food. Ella’s Deli in Madison must be the best place in the world for a kid to get ice cream–I haven’t actually tasted any since they don’t have nondairy flavors, but the place is AMAZING! The website isn’t able to do the place justice: there’s a full-sized carousel outside, games or toys in the tables, and moving displays on the walls and flying overhead on wires. It may sound strange, but the middle of all that chaos is a great place to wind down after a long convention weekend–comfort food, lots to look at and too noisy for more talk. My roommate and I are enamoured of the gourmet flavors at the gelato place in the MOA (only reason to go to the Megamall anymore). We make special trips to India Palace in Roseville so she can have their saffron-pistachio ice cream (I had saffron ice cream before I went vegan, and it’s delicious!), and I haunt the co-ops looking for the lovely creamy green tea soy ice cream I fell in love with once and have never found again.
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Mmmmmm…green tea ice cream…..
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Thanks, Beth-Ann, for a wonderful topic!
Ah let me count the ways:
– getting into our jammies and then climbing into the car to go for a Zesto when I was little (Storm Lake, IA)
– home made malts and popcorn sometimes for Sunday night “dinner”
– it was Carvel’s that we went to when I lived in NYC in mid-70s for a time.
– the Bridgeman’s on 26th and Hennepin in late 70s. This was when I moved in with friend Rose Hassing and her (rather odd) brother, later to become Husband. We walked there so often we dubbed ourselves Rose Haagen Dazs and Barbara Bridgeman’s… Would do the spoons on our noses routine while waiting for our orders.
In Ann Fadiman’s book At Large and At Small, one of the essays is “Ice Cream”. They go on a quest to find the BEST ice cream… This is now my mission. š Today’s posts will help steer me!
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p.s. Where did you grow up, Beth-Ann?
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Barb, With all my ice cream memories I think I grew out rather than up….I was born in Japan on American soil and didnāt come āhomeā until I was 9 months old. Since that time I have lived in Michigan, New York, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Minnesota. From 4th grade until college I lived outside of DC.
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What a fascinating personal history. So your early life was spent in Japan, but I’ll assume you aren’t fluent in Japanese. Or probably your Japanese is “rusty.” š
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To explain my presence on here the last two days: they have my wife on high doses of Prednisone so I can get her in so they do the expensive tests which will prove she has a pinched nerve, lupus, and arthritis, none of which will be treatable. But for the moment she is much more mobile and sleeps better. Yesterday we did the MRI. The young tech asked what music she wanted. When my wife said Classical, the young lady asked if she meant classic rock. So they asked for a station for her to listen to, She said MPR. The young lady did not know what that was. They came out and asked me where it was on the dial. They could not get it of course. So the tech gave me wife hard-bitten, western music. My wife had trouble not laughing.
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Once I brought my own music to an MRI at the suggestion of the imaging clinic, but concluded you hear so little of it over the MRI pounding and clanging that it’s not worth it.
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This one is much quieter ans more open.
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My mom was on IV prednisone this weekend to help with an MS falre up. She is feeling better. Prednisone is awful stuff.
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It is awful stuff that does terrible things to my wife without which she would not be alive.
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That seems so strange to me. Prednisone has been my buddy, the drug that released me from the prison of RA. I’m weaning myself away from it now, but it has made life tolerable in the past when all looked bleak.
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It gave my mom Type II diabetes.
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I hope, Steve, you never know the bad effects. But it is much trickier with lupus because RA is a much more static disease. Lupus keeps changing so doses keep changing, which changes side effects, which changes other drugs, which changes lupus, which . . .
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Thanks. I’m down to a tiny daily dose, and I’m due to go off it entirely in weeks.
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From At Large and At Small:
I recently calculated (assuming an average consumption of one pint of ice cream per week, at 1,000 calories per pint, and the American Medical Association’s reckoning of 3,500 calories per pound of stored body fat) that had I eaten no ice cream since the age of eighteen, I would currently weigh -416 pounds. I might be lighter than air, but I would be miserable.
– Anne Fadiman
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: )
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Barbara in Robbinsdale: I can help you with your quest. Let’s take a pleasant 40-minute country drive over rolling hills to one of the most charming towns in Minnesota, Afton. We’ll head south of town on a winding road and end up at Afton State Park, where we will hike the hills overlooking the Saint Croix long enough to put an edge on our appetite and to prevent guilt about the calories we are about to consume. We will return to Afton where Selma’s Ice Cream parlor awaits, the oldest ice cream parlor in Minnesota (they stored ammunition in the basement during the Civil War). Selma’s has been renovated since I was there, but I’ll bet they were smart enough to keep the embossed tin ceiling, the marble counter, the cute little ice cream shop tables and the outdoor seating. I can’t vouch for the ice cream now that the management has changed, but I have great faith.
I’m serious. Anyone who wants to go . . . I’m up for the drive!
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And you’re up for the hiking, too?
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I’ll do my best.
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Field trip!
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That sounds lovely! We were married in Afton at a lovely Lutheran church overlooking the St. Croix where Jim’s mom played organ for many years.
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I had the most awesome ice cream treat in Camden last summer, in a place that did “laboratory” ice cream. They make it on the spot with liquid nitrogen, then they offer you some cool toppings like salted caramel sauce…so delicious! My kid went nuts watching the creation of her sundae; it was like an episode of Bill Nye the Science Guy! This is the place:
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Camden, as in north Mpls where my wife grew up?
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Oh, you’re in Florida, aren’t you?
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i am, but this place with the liquid nitrogen was actually in Camden Market in London. We were over in the UK visiting my husband’s family and we happened upon this little hole-in-the-wall place. It was one of the highlights of our trip, for sure!
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How many people do you know (allergies aside) who don’t like ice cream? I can think of only a couple.
Every Fourth of July we would hand crank vanilla and burnt sugar, and my aunt and uncle always brought raspberries from their bushes. Vanilla with raspberries was my first dish; burnt sugar by itself for the second. Soooo good! I love Izzy’s although the time I ordered butter pecan it tasted like I was eating a stick of butter. The Dairy Barn at MN State Fair has the world’s best soft serve.
In Sioux Falls go to the Milky Way for soft serve, Nucci’s for gelato, and for hard – HyVee grocery stores carry a few flavors made by the dairy students at SDSU. Or better yet drive up to Brookings for more selection.
I’ve not heard of Sebastian Joes. Any relation to Trader?
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My daughter takes her kids to the SDSU dairy lab for ice cream as we did her and her brother each trip to Brookings.
I do not dislike ice cream, but I can easily pass on it. I have never had home-made ice cream I liked.
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Nope, Sebastian Joe’s is an independently-owned place on Hennepin and Franklin in Uptown. Looks like a contemporary cafe instead of an old-fashioned ice cream parlor. I stopped in there occasionally when I was taking lessons at Jawaahir’s old location over the late, lamented Burch Pharmacy.
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I have a slight preference to their second location in Linden Hills (on Upton), mostly because it’s right by Creative Kidstuff (and only a block or so from Wild Rumpus). I can satisfy all of my inner-kid in a few steps.
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I like ice creatm but would choose almost any dessert ahead of it. Sacrilege, I know. I also don’t like gilding the lily – making cake or pie a la mode.
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waaaay too many ice cream stories in my life experiences. I think I could use it as a guide to write my biography, the ice cream chapters.
Sayklly’s on Ludington Avenue in Escanaba MI was our place to go after basketball home games on Friday nights. Hot Tin Roof sundaes for 50 cents. Parents drove in from wherever to pick up the kids. It was a depot that brought the community together.
I once made an exquisite peach ice cream with fresh peaches—no ice cream maker but it was silky smooth rich, possibly the best ice cream ever.
Some hot Sundays after mass, Daddy, without saying a word, would drive past our house and head into town. The kids would all start screaming, we knew it meant frozen custard!!! My fatherās whole family was remarkably gentle and thoughtful. My favorite daddy ice cream memory: he is driving down main street in our 1957 turquoise and white Rambler station wagon, 4 kids in the backseat and 3 in the wayback concentrating on our custard cones. As we approach one of the 2 red lights on main, my father says, āOK, everybody stop eating, hold your cones down in your lap until I tell you to raise them.ā We do as he says. When someone starts to askā¦he says, shhhh. The light changes and he gives us the go ahead to resume eating. Someone says why did we have to stop. His answer, āDidnāt you see the kids in the car next to us? They didnāt have ice cream cones. How do you think they would feel if they saw us with ours.ā That sort of explains him.
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That is a lovely story about your dad. That sort of sensitivity is most uncommon.Very cool!
And peach ice cream is one of my very favorite things ever. I can only imagine how yummy yours must have been!
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Nan, No wonder you grew up to be such a gracious person!
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: ) I try. But in a way none of us measure up to my father’s family. I think the traits are watered down by the blood of the mates? (that is an example of something he NEVER would have said but he, probably, never would have had that thought) Thank goodness I have more of my father than mother! I can hear/feel his voice/essence sometimes when mentoring students, eerie.
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Lovely portrait of an admirable dad, Nan. How wonderful for you to have been fathered by someone like that.
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Coldstone is high-priced, sickeningly sweet., gummy.
Ted Drewes in St. Louis is heaven but it is custard, the only “ice cream” I would drive out of the way for, such as to Adele’s after the monthly trip to the Arb.
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Clyde, I guess you know where Adele’s is now located in Minnetonka if that is the one that was in Mankato. I have been to that one with my daughter’s family and it does have good frozen custard. I am also a fan of frozen custard and went to place in Lafayette, Indiana, when I lived there, that had very good frozen custard.
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It is the same Adele’s.
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Anyone been here? The U of M farm campus in St. Paul sells ice cream: http://heavytable.com/university-of-minnesota-dairy-salesroom/
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I haven’t been to the U of M place, but I have been to university ice cream stores at both the U of Wisconsin and Purdue.
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Several years ago we had a tradition of having Mom’s milk ice cream, at our annual Sustainable Farming Assoc. chapter meeting, that was produced by a company founded by Mike Hqrtman. It was very good and i think it was made with raw milk. We have not been able to get this ice cream lately because Mike Hartman has been taken to court for selling raw milk that might have caused some people to get sick. Mick doesn’t believe that milk was responsible causing people to get sick.
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I hate to ask…Mom’s milk ice cream? That sounds like, um, human milk.
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Better than the People’s Gas Company in Iowa.
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š
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It was milk from cows.
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I’m with Mike Hartman. Lots of nasty food politics stuff going on, and they’re trying to make it look like the raw milk farmers are to blame. Lots of other possible reasons for the sickness. Don’t get me started.
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Honestly, Beth-Ann! How MANY spoonfuls of ice cream? How many spoonfuls? Too, too many to remember! They’ve stuck to my mid-section and my hips and my thighs. The more recent ones seem to be piling higher.They don’t go away anymore. Each spoonful stays right inside me where I put it. I’ve loved each and every one.
I do like various flavors of ice cream, but (and you will find this boring) my favorite is plain vanilla, without topping, followed by strawberry with fresh strawberries and whipped cream on top. I don’t have any family memories of going to an ice cream shop. We went to the DQ a few times when I was young, but not often. Sweets were mostly prohibited, except on rare occasions. I believe prohibitions like this create an adult with a very insatiable sweet tooth.
OT: I haven’t been able to be here much lately. It has taken me days and days to catch up. You guest bloggers are doing a wonderful job. Jacque, thanks for your touching tribute to TLGMS. You described so well the desolation and grief I felt when Jim Ed retired and the Morning Show signed off, then again when MPR let Dale go. I never imagined life without them. I should have, but I didn’t. I took them for granted every morning for nearly 30 years and when they were gone I was desolate. I never thought I’d find a community who understands how that felt. I’m so grateful for all of you.
I’ve been too busy lately, and feeling stressed out about it too. I’ve wanted to catch up on reading the blog but I’ve been interrupted each time I’ve tried. I’ve had the feeling that I’m swimming far out from a peaceful, verdant shore, and that the tide is against me and I’m swimming so hard to get back here where people are kind and only want to know about your earliest memories and how many scoops of ice cream you’ve had. I’ll have to have a bowl of strawberry ice cream for supper.
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Krista,, scoops seemed a little presumptuous for the healthy people here, so I went with spoonfulls but I am with you! Maybe with more ice cream your life will improve and you can spend more time with us on the trail š
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Glad to see your post Krista! Sorrynyounare feeling stressed. Get back when you can.
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Since I’m older than Jesus, I grew up with ice cream parlors that had a certain look. They often were a part of a drug store, such as the lovely store that used to be on the main street of Park Rapids, where my family vacationed in the 1950s. What did it look like? Well, this movie catches that exactly in the first minute and a half. I’ll bet you’ve seen this before.
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Steve, you might want to try Lynden’s in St Paul on Hamline and Randolph next to The Nook. http://www.lyndens.com They have phosphates, make their own sodas etc. It hasn’t been there long but looks like it has. Full disclosure I have known one of the owners since she was a child.
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There was an article in a recent City Pages about this…
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In my very early teens, my parents had a cabin on Lake Waverly near Waverly Minnesota. At that stage, I was frankly more interested in hanging around with the kids up in town than I was in activities at the lake. On main street was Dredge’s Pharmacy. Homer Dredge was not only the proprietor and pharmacist, but also the soda jerk when the occasion arose. It was an absolutely classic ice cream counter, the kind that I am grateful to have experienced in its authentic state. A marble counter and six stools. Homer would make you any kind of phosphate you wished or any flavor of Coke (fountain-mixed cherry Coke, lime,lemon or chocolate Cokes). To the right of the counter was the rack with the latest Archie comics and Batman and Green Lantern and Flash. Behind the fountain were dusty boxes and bottles- all for sale without irony- of Swamp Root, Wizard Oil and Lydia Pinkham’s. I suspect that apart from the town dentist, Old Doc Moll, that Homer Dredge was unique in that town for having had a college education and he wore it, a little, on his sleeve. He sometimes would address a juvenile patrons as “young Nicodemus” and he spoke to us differently than the other adults in town. I usually ordered a chocolate or a grape soda.
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I remember going to an ice cream place close to my first Connecticut house. They had 4 flavors: the usual V, S anc C but also banana. I couldn’t stand chocolate ice cream until I was an adult (I have no idea what THAT was about). My all time faves are Maple Nut and Coffee.
At the aforementioned Pumphouse Creamery (which I WANT to love ’cause it’s my neighborhood place but find the ice cream sometimes too crystally), I used to be a fan of Kulfi – pistachio and rosewater. I must have been only one of a few because it was no longer on the menu last time I went.
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I’m in awe of how the topic of ice cream can generate so many stories! I don’t have one single
memory or association with ice cream to share.
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You will after I talk to you again. You’ll remember some memories I can share.
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Ice Cream Suit. Ray Bradbury.
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In StubbekĆøbing, Is Flemmings was the place to get your ice cream during the summer months. This small shop, with no signage whatsoever, was about a half mile from our house, and when dad was home, we’d often walk there for a special treat. Flemming, the proprietor, baked his own cones, so they were always fresh, and he carried only three flavors of ice cream: vanilla, strawberry and chocolate. Each cone was served with a dollop of freshly whipped cream and topped with a homemade strawberry sauce. No ice cream shop I’ve ever been to since has lived up to my memory of its charm or the quality of its ice cream. But something strange happened when I was 10 years old; I suddenly didn’t like ice cream anymore. It was too rich and I couldn’t tolerate it anymore. To this day I rarely eat ice cream, but I love the fruit and water-based frozen treats on a stick hawked by the various street vendors in my neighborhood.
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Greetings! Coming from a big family, we just had cheap ice cream and didn’t go out for special treats. My special ice cream memories are usually around trips to our cabin. Occasionally, dad would make a stop halfway home at a small town and we would get ice cream cones. Choosing the flavors was always so hard, because it was a rare treat. My other favorite memory of ice cream was in college. When I first came to Minneapolis and the U of MN, I stayed in the Comstock dorm. My roommate and I would walk down to the store in Stadium Village to buy a pint of Haagen-Dazs to share. Fun times!
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I remember sitting in my parents front sun room, feet up on the windows sill, sitting next to my pal Andrea when we were in high school. She always got a pint of Haagen-Dazs Rum Raisin, I went for Chocolate Chocolate Chip. We could sit there and chat and philosophize for hours – and generally ate the whole pint in one go. I knew I had gotten older when I couldn’t eat a whole pint anymore without getting woozy (or gaining 5 pounds at the mere thought of it).
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Dear Baboons thanks for sharing your sweet memories. I was suddenly scheduled to have an MRI of knee this afternoon. While waiting to be called in for the procedure, I re-read your posts and relaxed among friends. Your stories made the time go be so much better. It will be a little while before I learn if my non-working knee is fixable or not. Thanks with a cherry on top!
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ouch! wish I could fix it with an ice cream cone
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Beth-Ann, I hope that the news about your knee is good. Thanks for the good blog topic and good introduction to this topic. Ice cream is certainly something that completely captures may attention as a treat and as a topic of discussion.
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Oh, ice cream š How I love thee. I’m picky about ice cream however. I’m not a fan of soft serve (though if it’s all I can get, I’ll eat it). I prefer it scooped out of a bucket and shoved in a cone. My favorite memories of ice cream are going to Presque Isle Park in Marquette, MI. We would drive around the park, checking out the sights and views, searching for deer in the woods, and when we came to the tiny little ice cream stand, we would always stop for a cone of Jilbert’s ice cream. Mackinac Island Fudge is the best flavor of all time…but it has to be by Jilbert’s. I don’t know if they use actual Mackinac Island fudge, but it sure tastes like it! No other brand has ever come close. In my hometown of Owatonna, MN, we have a small ice cream stand called Blast. It’s soft serve, but it’s affordable and the cones are bigger than DQ. My brother and I would bike down during the summer, grab a 75 cent cone that was 3 inches tall, then bike back home š They only had vanilla, chocolate, or twist, but it was still good. I like the little Mom and Pop stands the best.
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good to see you r eback alanna
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When we lived in Winnipeg there was this place called the BDI or the Bridge Drive-in (or Beck Depression Inventory, depending on your mood) in a small place on the Assinaboine river near our rental house. It was pretty popular for soft ice cream.
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I can’t remember when so many baboons have written with such passion, or so many details! š
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31 flavors of Baboons or a Lollapalooza Sundae with Trail Mix topping!
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Family pronunciation of ice cream was based on my “baby” sister’s version. She called it Ha-Keem so that’s always the word we used within the family.
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Good evening– or good morning it is now I guess.
Nelson Wisconsin? Nelson Cheese? (and Ice cream?) One of our favorite road trip destinations…
Thanks for the topic Beth-Ann. I haven’t had much time lately to comment but sure do enjoy the stories.
I had an uncle that worked for Kemps here in Rochester. Any family event and he showed up with the 2 gallon cardboard container of Vanilla ice cream.
It was a big deal to take the whole family into the local A&W for the refillable gallon glass jars of root beer. Especially after finishing 2nd crop hay then it was root beer floats all around!
I remember Dad hauling hogs to market in the pick up. (another one of those early memories) and afterward we would stop at the DQ for dilly bars. Mine always lasted longer than his and he would tease me about getting a bigger dilly bar than he did. Dad does not remember this; says the DQ wasn’t on the way to the sales barn and we wouldn’t have done that.
Sure seems real to my memories and I think he’s wrong.
There was a Bridgemans in Rochester but we didn’t go there much. I think Mom says it was too expensive.
Responding to memories of yesterdays blog again (and thanks Steve for giving us such a memorable blog topic) today I visited the gravesites of my paternal grandparents and great grandparents.
I remember standing by Grandma’s bed and realized today she died when I was only 2 years old. Huh. I thought I was more like 4 or 5.
Guess that’s my earliest memory.
Good night.
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