We’ve long been advocates of supporting your local ice cream shop. Most of them are seasonal and family owned and rely on the sweet tooth of ice cream lovers like us to make it through the “off season” (even though there’s really no off season when it comes to enjoying ice cream).

Here’s a great example of that support. An ice cream shop in Cambridge, Massachusetts called Toscanini’s (the New York Times once claimed Toscanini’s had the world’s best ice cream) recently had to close its doors because it owed $150,000 in back taxes and the Massachusetts Department of Revenue seized the property until a portion of the total was paid. That’s when Toscanini’s local customers (and ice cream lovers throughout the area) came to rescue.

After an outpouring of online donations, fans of the shop raised $30,000 in just five days—enough to reopen the shop and bring Toscanini’s world famous ice cream back to the masses.

We wanted to share a few recipes using Duetto…just in time for the weekend! 

SMOOTH RASPBERRY MILK SHAKE 

3 Scoops of Turkey Hill Raspberry Duetto
¾ cup milk
3 fresh black raspberries�
2 fresh red raspberries

Place three scoops of Raspberry Duetto into a blender.  Add milk and fresh black and red raspberries.  Blend together until smooth and creamy.  Serves one.

 LEMON DUETTO PIE

Turkey Hill Lemon Duetto
8 oz container cool whip
2 Tbsp lemon juice
1 lemon
1 Graham cracker piecrust
      �
Scoop Lemon Duetto ice cream into piecrust.  Fill ¾ to top.  In a bowl mix cool whip with lemon juice.  Cover Lemon Duetto with cool whip mixture. Cut lemon slices to garnish top. Serves eight.�

What can we say…Turkey Hill loves sports. Especially baseball. The warm weather, the relaxed pace. It’s the perfect sport for ice cream too. (Who doesn’t love some Graham Slam served in one of those miniature helmets?)

As most of you may know, Turkey Hill is the official ice cream of the Philadelphia Phillies, which is one of the reasons why we’re excited about this weekend’s Phillies Kids Phest at Citizen’s Bank Park. Plus it’s a chance to experience baseball in January, which is always nice.

From noon till 3:30 pm on Saturday, Turkey Hill will be on hand to help celebrate the Phest. The event features autographs from members of the 2008 Phillies, hitting and pitching demonstrations, visits to the Phillies dugout and clubhouse and lots more, including Turkey Hill’s Kid’s Opening Night Drawing Contest. Kids can draw pictures of their favorite Phillie players and the winners will be shown on the Phillies’ jumbotron during Turkey Hill Kid’s Opening Night on Saturday, April 12.

April 12 may seem like an eternity to wait for the Phillies to play their home opener, but don’t worry…Spring Training starts in 23 days!

The following was posted on the Ice Cream Journal back in July. Ernie weilding a giant knife is worth a second look, isn’t it?

A while ago, CN8 brought their TV cameras to the Dairy to get an inside look at our ice cream making process. One of the segments they filmed was with Ernie. As many of you know, Ernie is our resident ice cream expert. He oversees the daily ice cream making operations here at Turkey Hill (you can ask him a question using the link on the right). He’s also our official ice cream taster. Yeah, he gets paid to eat ice cream.

One of the daily tests he does is a visual examination of the ice cream. To do this, he takes a very large knife and cuts the container in half to make sure all the inclusions (fudge, pecans, cherries, cookies, cookie dough, etc.) are dispersed evenly. Below is a video of Ernie performing that inspection for the CN8 cameras and talking about the blog. (If the video box doesn’t display below, just refresh your browser window.)

That’s right, today is all about strawberry ice cream. It deserves its own day too! Strawberry ice cream is one of the first flavors ever created. It makes sense. In the early days, ice cream flavors were vanilla-based concoctions with various bits of fruit mixed in for good measure.

One of the earliest documented uses of strawberry ice cream comes from 1744 – long before George Washington and Thomas Jefferson caught on to the joys of ice cream in the latter half of the 18th century. It was in 1744 that Maryland Governor Thomas Bladen began serving strawberry ice cream to impress dignitaries and other house guests.

Good news everyone! Our 12 Days of Ice Cream winner has come forward to claim his prize of a year’s supply of Turkey Hill ice cream (payable in 52 coupons for free ice cream). His name is John M. and he’s from Concord, California. Yeah, that’s right…California.

As some of you may know, Turkey Hill has been expanding westward into grocery stores throughout the nation at a rapid pace in recent years, but we’re not quite in California (yet). We gave John the option of taking the coupons (if he knows someone on the East Coast, he can give them away) or we can ship him some ice cream throughout the year. Our home deliveries (available here) are packed in dry ice and are a little costly, but if you’re stuck somewhere without Turkey Hill ice cream, we like to think it’s totally worth it.

This month’s poll is simple, though the choice in real life may not always be. When you visit your local ice cream shop (which, as an ice cream lover, you really should be doing more often…remember our New Year’s resolutions?), are you more of a cup person or a cone person? It’s a valid question. Some of us are strictly one or the other and some of us kind of go back and forth depending on our mood.

You’ll also notice in our poll that we’ve broken down the “cone” category into the two main families of cones: sugar (or waffle) and wafer (sometimes referred to as a “cake” cone). The sugar and waffle cones are a dense, brittle, crunchy cone. They’re almost always tall and pointy-ended, although some ice cream shops offer waffle bowls (technically not a “cone”), sometimes dipped in chocolate and other sweets.

The wafer cones, on the other hand, are much different. These are the light, airy, flat-bottomed ones you probably remember from your childhood. The flat bottom comes in handy when you want to take break and put your cone on a table or a leather car seat. Most soft serve ice cream is served up in a wafer cone. These are also the type of cone you’re most likely to see being sold in boxes at the grocery store.

Happy New Year to everyone! We hope the celebrations went well and 2008 is going well for all of you so far. We’re happy to announce that the last two winners of our 12 Days of Ice Cream prizes have stepped forward to claim their prizes. They are Pamela Q. of Star Junction, PA (Everybody Loves Ice Cream book) and George S. of Dansville, NY (Ice Cream: The Full Scoop book). The grand prize of a year’s supply of ice is STILL unclaimed!

We’re not sure how many of you are the type to make New Year’s resolutions. Some of us around the office make them every year. Others don’t. One co-worker’s resolution (she shall remain nameless) is to “not make any resolutions this year.” Sounds like a resolution to us, but we’re not going to split hairs.

For those who haven’t made any resolutions — and even those who have — we thought we’d offer a few ice cream-related committments you might choose on make in ‘08. Here’s what we came up with:

1. Expand your ice cream horizons. Try one new flavor of ice cream per month.
2. Make homemade ice cream and invent your own signature flavor.
3. Explore ways to use ice cream in drink and dessert recipes.
4. Visit your local scoop shop more often.
5. Eat ice cream for breakfast (not often, but try it…you might like it!)
6. Use a special ice cream bowl and ice cream spoon.
7. Learn more about the history of ice cream and its production process.
8. Visit an ice cream factory.
9. Offer to buy a stranger an ice cream cone on a hot summer day (no guarantees with this one…he or she might just look at you funny and walk briskly in the opposite direction.)
10. Visit the Turkey Hill sampling tent at an event near you in 2008!

Okay, the last one was a little self-serving, but we couldn’t resist. If anyone has any suggestions for other ice cream resolutions let us know with a comment.