Food and Things » Ice Cream

Bike the Back Streets of Key West

Laura Weiss — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:10:45 +0000

Some say that Key West is a trashy tourist trap with a trail of tchotchke shops strung along Duval Street, the town’s main drag. Once you’ve snagged a neon-hued flamingo you can stop by one of the many bars for a drink.

In fact, many people come to this semitropical island at the southernmost tip of the US solely for the purpose of getting on a non-stop buzz. A river of booze flows through Duval day and night to accommodate the many boozers.

On the other hand, once you get off Duval Street, Key West projects a raffish beauty that’s one part southern Gothic, one part Carribean and one part counterculture, circa 1968.

I like to ride my bike through the back streets, pedaling past the bougainvillea-draped Conch houses, some dating back to the 19th century. The locals seem caught in a time warp. Facial hair on men is big. Not ala Williamsburg. More a 60s Haight look. Lots of T-shirts with peace signs.

During my bike ride the other day, I stopped at 4th of July ice cream parlor at 1110 White Street, part of the Mattheessen’s mini-chain, which also owns two scoop shops near Duval Street.

I’m a sucker for ice cream parlors, but this one disappoints. I sampled the Cuban Coffe and Butter Pecan ice creams. Both, I’m sorry to report, are pretty bland. So generic are these two flavors that it was tough to distinguish between them.

At Old Town Bakery at 930 Eaton Street, the story is much the same. This time, it’s the OMG Brownie that’s lackluster. The pastry barely tastes of chocolate, even though the center of the brownie oozes a crater of molten ganache.

Maybe the reason for this tropical scourge of blandness is that local purveyors are peddling to the tourist trade. Whatever the cause, don’t come to Key West for the ice cream and brownies. Not that you would anyway.

Boozy Ice Cream Treats for the Holiday

Laura Weiss — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 02:43:26 +0000

Butter Pecan with Brandy Ice Cream. Photo: Ice Cream Happy Hour.

Want to get a buzz on for the holidays? You could stick to plain old cocktails. Or you could jazz them up a bit by adding ice cream. Better yet, why not churn some ice cream that’s flavored by vodka, rum or some other liquor? Click here to read my HuffPo post with recipes you can use for the holidays or all year round.

Ice Cream: Coolhaus vs Shake Shack

Laura Weiss — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 13:20:28 +0000

Guinness Chip Ice Cream + Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie

In an ice cream face-off, how do Coolhaus ice cream sandwiches and Shake Shack Concretes fare?

OK, the two ice cream products differ in several key ways. For one, Coolhaus sandwiches are filled with ice cream; Shake Shack’s products are made from frozen custard. Yet they’re both vying for the New York artisanal ice cream dollar. (I happened to gorge on both Coolhaus and Shake Shack frozen goodies in the same day so that pig-out begged for comparison.)

Coolhaus

Sandwiching ice cream between cookies is not new. But Coolhaus, which operates a band of food trucks, takes the process one step further. The hugely popular ice cream purveyor serves up a rotating menu of flavors, like Blueberry Ginger and Red Velvet Cake. And they sandwich the frozen filling between flavor-filled cookies–from chocolate chip to gluten-free peanut butter.

Plus, you’re encouraged to mix and match. Feel like a maple waffle white chocolate cookie on one side and a chocolate one on the other? Coolhaus is happy to oblige.

It’s very fun, and the cookies, at least the double chocolate fudge ones I chose, are dense and intensely chocolaty.

But there’s a problem. And it’s the ice cream.

If you like yours with a thinnish consistency, you’ll enjoy the Coolhaus variety. I happen to prefer my ice cream dense and heavy. What’s more the chocolate cookies overwhelmed the salted caramel ice cream I chose as the filling. Next time I’ll order a less fully-flavored cookie and maybe the combo will work better.

Shake Shack

A few hours after my Coolhaus sandwich, I sauntered over to the Upper West Side Shake Shack, the one across the street from the Museum of Natural History. My hubby and I shared a Concrete with the awful name of Natural History Crunch-stellation. Monstrously studded with chocolate bits and chunks of chocolate covered toffee, it was way over the top on the mix-in scale. Maybe it’s a guy’s ice cream treat. My hubby loved it.

But the frozen custard, as Shake Shack faithful will agree, is delicious. Our concrete was made with vanilla which boasted a striking vanilla bean taste. Plus the texture was silky and the custard boasted a substantial yet delicate mouth feel.

Coolhaus

The trucks are at various locations. Check @coolhausny.

Shake Shack

New York, Miami, Washington DC, Westport CT, Saratoga Springs NY.

Ice Cream Recipes Galore!

Laura Weiss — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 17:12:12 +0000

My friend Virginia Willis, the outstanding cookbook author, food entrepreneur and all-around Food Maestro, offers up these delicious-sounding ice cream recipes. I haven’t tried them yet. But from the buzz online, they sound pretty sensational.

Chill, Baby

Virginia Willis

I’m enjoying my summer. I’ve been trying to chill. Trying. It’s admittedly not always my nature.

One of the many things I am enjoying is that I’ve been making ice cream or sorbet this summer at least 2-3 times a week. Read more here.

Upper West Side: All About Screme Gelato

Laura Weiss — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 21:42:19 +0000

A rainbow of gelato flavors in a Rome gelateria. Photo: Susan Toth.

Screme Gelato, which hails from Israel, typifies the globalization of the popular Italian variety of ice cream. With two shops on the Upper West Side and others elsewhere in the city, Screme is making inroads all over the city. And its story was featured in Ice Cream: A Global History (Reaktion Books).

The book, a look at ice cream's vibrant history worldwide, uses Screme as an example of gelato's growing worldwide appeal. Gelato was once made almost exclusively in Italy by family-owned concerns. These days, gelato has gone corporate. Large companies making bases and flavors supply gelato makers worldwide. What's more, anyone can be a gelato maker these days---even Israelis who adore ice cream of all types, and local influences are creeping into gelato. Sometimes variants--from Cookies and Cream to Peanut Butter, are supplanting traditional flavors like chocolate and pistachio.

Here's the excerpt from Ice Cream: A Global History (by yours truly):

In the summer of 2009, a new brand of gelato arrived in New York. In a bustling metropolis with thousands of outlets dishingup every ice cream variety imaginable – from classic vanilla to offbeat concoctions like bacon and egg – the debut of yet another ice cream purveyor caused barely a stir among the city’s ice cream aficionados.

But Screme gelato boasted a unique pedigree. The gelato maker hailed neither from Milan nor Rome, but rather from a country – Israel – far removedbfrom the hallowed traditions of Italian gelato making. In Israel, Screme (known as Aldo’s) had assembled more than 50 outlets. Though launched by an Italian gelato maker in 1993 Screme was soon taken over by a group of Israeli businessmen, who quickly rolled out flavours like halva and lemon to suit local tastes. When Screme opened its New York outlets, it took its ice cream in yet another direction, fashioning flavours like Captain Crunch, Reese’s Peanut Butter andKey Lime Vodka – tastes that were specifically engineered to appeal to American sensibilities.

‘The Italians are locked into standard flavors’, Screme’s owner Yona Levy maintains. Levy hasn’t hesitated to aggressively shunt aside centuries-old gelato traditions to create his unique kosher and organic offerings. In fact, it’s safe to say that Screme’s gelato variant – not to mention its rotating menu of more than 5,000 flavours – would utterly confound Italian ice cream traditionalists.

But Screme’s heterodoxy is not unusual. Around the world – from Berlin to Kansas City – globalization has transformed the Italian classic into a frozen dessert that more often than not barely resembles the traditional version. In fact, it could be asked: is today’s globalized version of gelato even Italian – or has it been reimagined into an entirely new, universal ice cream type?

Screme Gelato

2030 Broadway (between 69th and 70th Streets)

(212) 362-2111

176 West 94th Street

(corner 94th Street & Amsterdam)

(212) 663-1362

Screme @ Verdi Square @72nd Street

Coming soon.

An All Ice Cream Dinner June 6 in New York

Laura Weiss — Sun, 22 May 2011 22:51:33 +0000

Ice Cream Cones. Photo: Roger Smith Hotel

NEW UPDATE: The New York Times, June 1, 2011:

Five-Course Dessert

Ice cream from soup to nuts will be featured at a five-course dinner on Monday from 6 to 8:30 p.m. at the Roger Smith Hotel…. Click here to read more.

UPDATE: Carolina M Capehart of Historic Cookery will be making ice cream the old fashioned way at the dinner. Samples will be available for tasting!

If you’re food fantasy is an all ice cream dinner, then this event may be for you. Yours truly, an Upper West Side author, will also be speaking about ice cream around the world. Here are the details and the menu:

Ice Cream: Edible Conversations at the Roger Smith Hotel

Where: 501 Lexington Avenue, New York; 212 838 0844

When: June 6th, 2011 6-8:30pm

What: From Tallahassee to Tokyo: The Scoop on Ice Cream’s Global Allure

Speaker: Laura Weiss, Upper West Side author.

How much? Tickets: $45 for an ice cream based dinner and talk. Reserve a seat: icecreamglobal.eventbrite.com

Almost All Ice Cream Dinner Menu (tentative)

Snacks

Marinated Olives

House roasted nuts

Canapes

Guinness float

Smoked salmon tartar on crostini with horseradish ice cream and chives

First Course

Chilled Green Pea Soup with Yogurt Ice Cream

Second Course

Beet Carpaccio with Goat Cheese Ice Cream

Third Course

Seafood ceviche with Cilantro lime sorbet

Fourth Course

Venison loin, fingerling potatoes, grilled asparagus, lingonberry demi glaze ice cream

Fifth Course

Dark Chocolate gelato with sea salt, caramel, broken pretzels

Daniel B. Mowles

Executive Chef

Roger Smith Hotel

Julian Medina and Pichet Ong Open Cuban Diner Coppelia

Laura Weiss — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 23:00:36 +0000

Coppelia Cuban Diner

Anything Cuban—music, food, you name it—and I’m there, instantly. Coppelia Diner, a joint venture of famed chefs Pichet Ong and Julian Medina, is a warm casual spot for chowing down on traditional and inventive Cuban and Latin American specialties. And then there are Ong’s fabulous confections to finish off the meal.

I’ve been to Cuba twice and prowled around Little Havana in Miami. In Cuba, with strict rationing, the native cuisine has virtually disappeared except for a handful of “private” restaurants that cater to tourists.

So it’s always with mixed feelings that I approach Cuban food in the U.S. I remember the bare shelves in stores across the island nation. But the name Coppelia Diner–Coppelia’s is a famous ice cream parlor in Havana—grabbed me. So I had to check out this new eatery, open 24/7, to see what Ong and Medina, who also owns Toloache and Yerba Buena, were cooking up.

Inside the vibrantly decorated diner that brightens up a bleak stretch of 14th Street, there’s a long counter and tables and booths. Cuban music plays in the background because, as Ong told me,”of utmost importance to myself—and all of us—is our love for Cuban music.”

Coppelia “is inspired by an old fashioned diner with an ice cream and soda fountain eating counter, as found in Cuba, New York City, and many parts of the world,” Ong explained.

The menu consists of Cuban standards like ropa vieja, eggs and fried plantains, and yucca. But there are also inventive pan-Latin dishes like Chaufa de Mariscos and Peruvian fried rice, with shrimp, tilapia, mussels and tomato salsa, fufu (a root vegetable paste) and plantain puree.

The desserts are Latin-themed.

“For me, I think New York City needs a place where you can get a fabulous cajeta ice cream sundae, or a slice of carrot manchego cake, at 4am in the morning, with homemade everything,” Ong said.

The first time I was there, Ong handed me a serving of his luscious ice creams and sorbets to taste. Two in particular, salted tamarind and apple mojito sorbet, were nothing short of sublime.

A week later, I returned with my hubby. Our starters were crisp-on-the-outside, succulent on-the-inside ham and cheese empanadas, followed by plump tender quesadilla, stuffed with Chihuahua cheese, turkey, bacon and pico de gallo for $8.95. A Cubano, with roasted pork, Swiss cheese, pickles and mustard, also priced at $8.95 was delicious and meaty. I did miss the crunch of real Cuban bread, the kind you find everywhere in Little Havana in Miami. Still, the roll was impeccably fresh and helped meld together the flavors of the meats and cheese. For dessert, I dug into yet another scoop of the addictive apple mojito sorbet.

Coppelia

207 W. 14th St.

New York, NY

Passover: Chozen Ice Cream-A Lighter Finish to that Heavy Seder Meal

Laura Weiss — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 14:04:22 +0000

Photo: Laura B. Weiss

Chozen Ice Cream, concocted by three New York women, with names and ingredients that tap into the shtetl/Jewish culinary tradition—from Matzoh Crunch to the newest flavor, Apples and Honey, is a great finish to your Seder meal. Let’s face it, Haroseth, pot roast and matzoh ball soup (hopefully, of the non-cannonball variety), calls for a light finish laced with Jewish food memories. That’s what you get with kosher Chozen.

The ice cream comes in 6 flavors:

* Ronne’s Ruglach
* Matzoh Crunch
* Coconut Macaroon
* Chocolate Gelt
* Chocolate Babka
* Apples and Honey

Come sample Chozen at a New York Writers Workshop multi-author reading at the JCC May 2, 6-8 pm. I’ll also be reading from my new book, Ice Cream: A Global History.

My personal flavor is creamy, chunky Chocolate Gelt (ok, wrong holiday), but I also enjoy Apples and Honey (again, wrong holiday, but it’s all Jewish and it’s ice cream, so who cares?), with a subtle taste of honey that ripples through the ice cream. These ice creams tend to veer slightly toward the sweet side, so serve them with fruit, or something like Melissa Clark’s Crunchy-Topped Whole-Wheat Plum Cake. (Try substituting matzoh meal for the flour.)

Here’s where you can buy Chozen:

Read an Excerpt: Ice Cream: A Global History, Published Today

Laura Weiss — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 17:51:00 +0000

Child with Ice Cream cone. Photo: Laura B. Weiss

My new book, Ice Cream: A Global History, (Reaktion Books), is being published today, April 1. It’s a fun trip around the word of ice cream. Readers journey from ancient China where ice cream was concocted with dragon eyeballs and camphor to modern-day Turkey where ice cream vendors still make a frozen dessert that’s so thick it requires a knife and fork to eat.

Click here to order Ice Cream: A Global History.

Here’s an excerpt from the Introduction:

Everyone Loves Ice Cream
I scream, you scream,
we all scream for ice cream!
Howard Johnson, Billy Moll and Robert King.

It’s called gelato in Italy, glace in France and morozhenoe in Russia. From Tokyo to Turin, from Denver to Delhi, everyone loves ice cream. With the possible exception of romance–‘Your love is better than ice cream’, singer Sarah McLachlan has crooned – there are few of life’s pleasures, culinary or otherwise, that can match ice cream’s potent allure.

What accounts for the sweet frozen treat’s irresistible appeal?

First, ice cream is just plain delectable. Composed of cream or milk, sweeteners and flavorings, which are churned and frozen, ice cream boasts an icy sumptuousness. What’s more, ice cream packs an emotional wallop. Stoking the pleasure-producing regions of the brain, ice cream is known for its ability to generate feelings of well-being,

‘It’s amazing how quickly you recover from misery when someone offers you ice cream’, marvelled teenager Eugene Jerome in Brighton Beach Memoirs, American playwright Neil Simon’s coming-of-age play.

Of course, ice cream tantalizes the taste buds and delights the eye. There’s the frothy ice cream soda sipped through a straw at the neighborhood soda fountain. There’s the luxurious taste of a gelato-topped cone, relished while strolling through the streets of Rome. There are the Indian kulfi walas hawking cardamom-perfumed kulfi on the streets of Delhi and Mumbai….

As befits a food so strongly identified with fun, the story of ice cream is a lively one. It’s a movable feast peppered with Chinese emperors and English kings, former slaves, women inventors, shrewd businessmen, Italian immigrant hokey pokey ice cream vendors, a gourmand First Lady, health food advocates, temperance apostles and modern-day food snobs.

Though the Chinese are said to have been the first to fashion a dairy-like frozen dessert, ice cream as we now know it was initially formulated in Europe, principally in Italy, but also in France, England and other parts of the Continent.

Ice cream then traveled across the Atlantic to America. In fact, Americans like to claim ice cream as their national dessert, conferring upon it a status rivaling the mythic apple pie…..

Despite the sizable American influence, indigenous ice cream cultures flourish worldwide. For example, Italian gelato is prized by ice cream connoisseurs everywhere. In Turkey and parts of the Middle East, salepi dondurma, an ice cream enhanced with orchid root, continues to flourish.

Still today, national ice cream traditions are fading, blending into a universal version of what once was a distinctive
local dessert….

Even gelato, that supposedly sacrosanct Italian ice cream, has been transformed (corrupted, some might say) by outside influences. There’s now green tea and cheddar cheese gelato being served from Des Moines to Delhi. In Italy, sampled flavors like ginger and spicy Aztec chocolate, some clearly not handmade and displaying flavor notes culled from regions far beyond Florence and Rome.

In fact some might ask at this point: is gelato even Italian any more?

Oscars: Justin Bieber, Other Movie Stars Love Ice Cream

Laura Weiss — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 14:39:42 +0000

Justin Bieber eating ice from. Photo: Teen Vogue.

From Justin Bieber to Ingrid Bergman, movie stars love ice cream, so Oscar night is a good time to review these ice cream factoids.. Plus, scads of movies featured ice cream or soda fountains to evoke bedrock American values.

In honor of the Oscars, here’s some movie star and celeb trivia about the and stars and their ice cream fixations. Some of these tidbits come from my new book, Ice Cream: A Global History (Reaktion Books)

Justin Bieber: His favorite flavors are said to be: vanilla and cotton candy.

Lana Turner: Famously was discovered, according to popular legend, sitting at the soda fountain at Schwab’s Drugstore in LA.

Ingrid Bergman: Movie moguls worried about her devotion to ice cream sundaes.Would too many of the gooey treats render her porky and no longer star material?

Actress Lana Turner was discovered at Schwab's Drugstore.

Borat drover an ice cream truck across America in Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.

Natalie Portman reportedly thinks Carvel soft ice cream can’t be beat.

George Washington, one of the nation’s first celebs, built ice houses on his plantation to store his favorite treat. He once spent $200 on ice cream in just one summer when the US capital was briefly situated in New York.

For an Oscar party drink and snack recipe, click here.