47 thoughts on “Cherry Saturday, July 6, 2019

  1. Oh, like I need an ice cream month. I’m already thoroughly steeped in carbs and calories. So what else is July?

    Dog Days of Summer – July 3 – August 11. Hmmm, Crusie and dogs? Too easy!

    National Blueberry Month – not interested.

    National Anti-Boredom Month – well, duh! That’s why I follow Jenny!

    Unlucky Month for weddings. Huh. Been there, did that, Got divorced two years later. (Married her again six years later, in November.)

    National Cell Phone Courtesy Month. Cool.

    National Hot Dog Month. Brats better count, ’cause that’s how I roll.

    National Ice Cream Month. Full circle, and I’ll admit to those little cups. (Breyers Chocolate, 100 calories each.)

    National Picnic Month. Of course – hot dogs and ice cream. All that’s missing is doughnut month.

    I note that week 2 is Nude Recreation Week. And July 6 is International Kissing Day. How does one accomplish International Kissing? Must one stand at the border and kiss someone on the other side? I like Canadians and Mexicans, but… I suppose one could stand at an embassy gate for a wider variety. Alas, July 6 is still week 1, so no nude international kissing.

    Jenny, is http://www.holidayinsights.com/moreholidays/july.htm your source for wacky holidays?

    1. You’d be interested in National Blueberry Month if 1) you lived in or near Michigan, where they grow luscious blueberries or 2) you’d ever tasted Blueberry Sour Cream Cake. This cake is so wonderful that my friend celebrates his birthday (11/15) in July, just so he can have it for his birthday cake. The only problem is that he doesn’t cut it at work and share it with the rest of us.

      1. Can you share the recipe for the cake? Also, are blueberries in season in MI now? My raspberry bush shows signs that in a week or 2, I might have a raspberry ready to eat.

  2. I literally don’t have money. I went to a comic and gaming expo and used my credit card to buy Exploding Kittens card game. 😬

  3. This reminds me to clean stuff out of my minuscule freezer so I can store the canister for the ice cream freezer in there. Last year was the year of strawberry gelato. This year perhaps I will stick with peach.

  4. Reminds me to try the new ice cream stand down the road. I can combine the trip with a stop at the farm stand and the perennial plant shop. Then I’ll have no money. (And first I must really figure out where the new plants will go!)

  5. Peach is one of my faves and so is B&J’s Phish Food. Here at the lake, there’s a place called Sycamore Drive-In that has frozen custard and that’s a must-do at least once during the season. Hmmmm…movie night with Grandboy tonight may have to include Sycamore… thoughts?

  6. Favourite ice creams forty five years and counting – pistachio and coffee. I remember with great fondness Baskin Robbins Jamocha Almond Fudge – I thought that nothing would ever come close…

    but….DH is developing serious gelato skillz. Cannot decide between speculoos/Biscoff, Espresso, Oreo or his pistachio. He also makes a mean fruit sorbet….

    1. There used to be an ice-cream chain called Farrell’s here that over-expanded and went belly-up that made the most wonderful ice cream sodas and sundaes. My favorite was a chocolate ice cream soda made with coffee ice cream. No almonds, but similar in flavor to jamoca almond fudge. There is a Baskin and Robins not too far from me. I may need to make a visit.

      1. My first job was at a Farrell’s in San Diego (Fashion Valley, to be precise). I can still do the pig trough call (oink oink suey suey piggy wiggy wiggy, with suitable patter before hand), and I can sing Happy Birthday at a suitable tempo (most people do it too slowly) and perfectly in tune.

      2. There was a Farrell’s in Eugene, OR, that we used to go to. Very vivid memory of one time when a stray Doberman got into the restaurant, and was chased by staff in those mad outfits with the straw hats. The dog was terrified. It ran to our booth, jumped into my mother’s lap, and urinated in fear. The staff said, “Ma’am, dogs aren’t allowed in the restaurant, you’re going to have to take your dog outside.” My mother, quite correctly, said, “This is not my dog.” My dad, whose sense of humor was kind of mean, said something like, “Now, honey, don’t lie to these nice people. I told you not to bring the dog.” My mother looked like her head was going to explode, sitting there, covered in dog pee, with a terrified full grown Doberman on her lap, everyone badgering her about “her dog,” and her husband busting a gut. I also remember the huge noisy fireworks type of event that a birthday there involved. The trumpets and horns, the sprinting staff carrying the order to the table. It wasn’t a quiet experience, but I LOVED the sundaes.

      3. I just looked up Farrell’s in Wikipedia. “…the ‘Zoo’ sundae, is delivered with great fanfare by multiple employees carrying it wildly around the restaurant on a stretcher accompanied by the sound of ambulance sirens.” It was a crazy place.

        1. When I was in high school we would go to Farrell’s after any play, concert or musical we performed. My memories are more of the presentation than the actual ice cream but I can recall having a great time.

  7. We had a huge hail storm yesterday, so I’ve spent a fair bit of today raking and bagging torn down leaves and branches. But also filling in pages in my art journal, so that’s good there.

  8. We’ve been setting heat records in Alaska, so lots of ice cream being eaten here!

    I had raspberry cobbler with vanilla ice cream for breakfast 2 days in a row, and daughter and I had ice cream from Coldstone Creamery for dinner last night.

  9. My favorite ice cream is peppermint. Difficult to find without chocolate. And not the ones with the hard candy peppermint, but the peppermint flakes that are almost like chips of frosting, if that makes sense. 🙂

  10. I am delighted to learn it is Ice Cream Month and to learn that *before* I go to the grocery store. I might have thought the pint of Dulce de Leche in the freezer was sufficient, but clearly it is not.

    Four new job applications this week. If I get an interview for at least one, I will take myself to Rita’s for frozen custard.

  11. I love ice cream. I love it so much, I leave it at the store. Most of the time.

  12. Summer is the time for Fresh Peach Ice Cream. When I lived in Bakersfield, CA, there was a little drive through that did fresh peach shakes when they were in season. I’d drive through on the way to work, and then on the way home again.

    Chocolate is still my all-time favorite, but Fresh Peach? So many memories there.

    1. Before they sold the company to Unilever, Ben & Jerry’s made Peach ice cream as a limited flavor for a few weeks every summer. I miss it.

  13. I must have known today was devoted to ice cream because I finished off a pint of Talenti gelato before I even opened my email. It wasn’t quite what I was craving, but what I wanted wasn’t on sale. Then I opened my mail to find that Sunset magazine had a full page devoted to unusual ice cream flavors available in the West. Every single one of them is a minimum of 1000 miles away. Sigh. Why is my favorite frozen custard stand 90 miles away?

  14. When I was in high school, a now defunct ice-cream store had the most delicious ice cream flavor, Minted Mocha Chocolate. Yummy. I’ve never tasted anything like it since.

  15. We stopped by the Italian Gelato shop down the block to find the boys from Milan had run out of anything chocolate. We made do. I recommend a scoop of Charcoal Vanilla in a bowl. And lots of napkins for the drips.

  16. Despite everything I bahhumbugged about ice cream month, I picked up a pack of Snickers Ice Cream Bars. I really shouldn’t have.

  17. So many great ice cream and frozen dessert stories here! We tend to have a “dessert of the summer” at our house. A couple of years, it was shaved ice with homemade syrup (usually strawberry). We’ve done a couple of years of custard ice cream (usually chocolate, sometimes lemon peel). There was the year of the coconut smoothie. Mmmm! Oh, and the year we did chocolate fudgesicles, based on the Smitten Kitchen recipe.

    This year, I have done smoothies, and I have done fudgesicles, but the beginning of summer was all about store-bought mint ice creams. Japan has been experiencing a boom! And there were, at one point, about six different mint frozen things, and I believe a dozen cookies/chocolates/snacks that featured mint. Mostly good; one did taste like medical mint, the kind you rub on your aching knees.

    Sadly, the powers that be have decided that we can’t have mint all summer long, and my favorite mint bar has disappeared. There are still cookies and a few other ice creams, but not my favorite. Maybe they just had a bigger demand than supply, and I just have to wait a few weeks until the Mint Factory gets back up to speed? I can dream.

    Oh well, happy ice cream! I’m sure I’ll find substitutes and enjoy the summer very much!

  18. Last night we ate at Culver’s. If gelato counts as ice cream, then surely so does frozen custard, right?

    1. Yes, but Culver’s is a poor substitute for Kopp’s. It’s a good thing I don’t have a monthly flavor forecast or I’d never recover from the homesickness.

  19. You are a dreadful bunch of tempters, you lot. It’s winter here, I gorged on pizza and chocolate for dinner, and now I want ice cream anyway. Preferably pistachio gelato from Croatia, which is the best ice cream I’ve ever had. Heck, it’s just about the best food I’ve ever had. Mmmmmmm.

  20. Driving across the northern US, we savored the huckleberry desserts. Huckleberries are big and fat; I think they have a stronger flavor than cultivated blueberries. My family’s favorites are the tiny Maine wild blueberries.

    Now that home from the trip, I’m going to try to make sorbet because ice cream has started to make my husband’s tummy uncomfortable. The recipes look pretty easy — I just have to get some fruit and try.

    I’ve been making baked custard for him. He loves it (especially with maple syrup). Huckleberries would make a delicious topping. . .

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