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Archive for August, 2009

ASK ERNIE: HOW DO YOU PRONOUNCE “SHERBET”

Monday, August 31st, 2009

CAROL A. FROM BUTLER, PA, ASKS: Please help me settle an argument, Ernie! My sister calls sherbet “sher-bert” and I tell her she shouldn’t pronounce the second R. She insists she’s correct, but I say she’s wrong. Who’s right?

Ahh, the classic sherbet/sherbert conundrum. It’s been causing arguments and dividing families ever since the word was invented to describe the sorbet-inspired treat back in the early 17th century. Personally, I pronounce it “shhermbetth” mainly because I usually have my mouth full of sherbet when I talk about it, but that’s just me.

I hope I don’t contribute to the rift between you and your sister, but you are correct, Carol. The correct pronunciation is “sher-bit,” which makes perfect sense considering it’s spelled “sherbet” (never “sherbert”).

I’m not sure when and why people started inserting that second R, but I’ve heard many ice cream savvy people throwing that extra consonant in there. It’s a risky slip of the tongue, because if you utter “sher-bert” in some ice cream circles, you’ll be laughed out of the room (and you won’t be allowed to take your French Vanilla with you). Of course, I don’t hang out in those circles because they tend to be a bit too rigid in the rules of “ice cream etiquette” for my taste.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to get more shhermbetth.

Tags: Ask Ernie, ice cream, sherbet, turkey hill
Posted in General | 40 Comments »

OPERATION HOMETOWN HELLO A SUCCESS!

Thursday, August 27th, 2009

You may remember — or have participated in — Turkey Hill’s Operation Hometown Hello program which took place in July.

Operation Hometown Hello was a partnership between Turkey Hill Dairy and Turkey Hill Minit Markets which helped collect donations of snacks and other goodies to be shipped to the brave men and women of the Pennsylvania National Guard currently serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. All you had to do was make a donation in an Operation Hometown Hello box found at any participating Turkey Hill Minit Market. Once the box was filled up, we shipped it off the troops who are always happy to get a taste of home.

We’re proud to announce that Operation Hometown Hello was a success! Thanks to your donations, we shipped more than 550 boxes of beef jerky, bubblegum and other treats overseas to eagerly waiting soldiers. That’s over 5,500 pounds of stuff, or almost one pound for every member of the Pennsylvania National Guard currently deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan!

Below are a few pictures of the troops with the treats many of you donated. Seeing these photos makes us wish we could take the Giant Cow over there and throw a huge ice cream party for these guys. If anyone deserves some time off and a few scoops of mint chocolate chip, it’s them!

Tags: minit market, operation hometown hello, troops, turkey hill
Posted in General | 41 Comments »

A VIDEO CO-STARRING STRAWBERRY BANANA DUETTO!

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

When it comes to the world of television and internet video, you never know where Turkey Hill will pop up. On “The Office,” there’s a Turkey Hill magnet on the refrigerator in the break room. At least it was there all of last season. Not sure if someone cleaned off the fridge for the new upcoming season. Turkey Hill ice cream also made an appearance on The Sopranos, when Tony Soprano himself scooped himself a late night snack. Hey, even mob bosses need their fix now and then!

More recently, a comedic duo called Bang Boom Crash from York, PA (right next door to Lancaster County) placed a carton of Turkey Hill’s Strawberry Banana Duetto front-and-center in a short video they made, entitled “Good News.” Check it out for yourself below!

We chatted with Stefan, one of the co-creators of the video (he’s the one doing the slapping and enjoying the Duetto) and encouraged him to incorporate Turkey Hill ice cream into more Bang Boom Crash videos. Anyone got any ideas for some short, funny videos they could create that might feature ice cream?

Good News from BangBoomCrash on Vimeo.

Tags: bang boom crash, comedy, duetto, turkey hill, video
Posted in General | 34 Comments »

RECIPE: CRISPY COOKIE DOUGH CRUNCH

Friday, August 21st, 2009

Okay, to answer the question about which news item from our last blog entry was fake, the answer is #1 (there’s no such thing as flavorless ice cream). Yes, unfortunately that means that the story about Viagra ice cream is 100 percent true. And now, on with our recipe!

Continuing our trend of paying homage to excellent recipes submitted during our holiday recipe contest, this one was sent to us by Cathy M. of Lynnfield, MA. Cathy’s recipe was called “Crispy Egg Nog Crunch,” but we put a non-holiday twist on it by renaming it “Crispy Cookie Dough Crunch.” How can you say no to that?

CRISPY COOKIE DOUGH CRUNCH

INGREDIENTS

2 cups crispy rice cereal
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup flaked coconut
1/2 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup chocolate hot fudge sauce
1 container Turkey Hill Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream

DIRECTIONS

In a bowl, combine the cereal, brown sugar, walnuts and coconut. Drizzle mixture with butter; stir until combined. Press half of the mixture into an ungreased 13-in. x 9-in. x 2-in. dish. Cut Cookie Dough ice cream into 3/4-in.-thick slices; arrange evenly over crust. Drizzle ice cream with chocolate syrup.
Top with remaining crumb mixture; press down lightly. Cover and freeze until serving. Cut in squares and serve on dessert plates. Makes 12 servings.

Tags: ice cream, recipe, turkey hill
Posted in General | 36 Comments »

WILD AND WACKY ICE CREAM NEWS: THE WEIRD FLAVORS EDITION

Wednesday, August 19th, 2009

It’s time for some more strange ice cream news. This time, we’re diving into recent news about weird ice cream flavors. As always, three of these stories are 100 percent true and one has been made up by the storytellers here at Turkey Hill. Leave a comment with your guess about which is the bogus news bite.

1. TASTE IS OVERRATED ANYHOW – In an effort to shine a spotlight on all the tasty goodies buried inside, a Sacramento, California ice cream shop owner has created an ice cream flavor that tastes like… absolutely nothing. The stark white treat is called “Blank Canvas” and uses a unique pasteurizing process to create a flavorless milk and cream base. Although it’s intended to be mixed with other treats, some customers order their scoops without the additions simply to experience the novelty of the anti-ice cream.

2. ICE CREAM TO GET YOU IN THE MOOD- We’ve always known that ice cream is a great pick-me-up summer treat, but an ice cream shop in London has taken that joy to a new level with the creation of Viagra ice cream (aka “vice cream”). The tantalizing treat sells for $16.99 per serving (you must by 18 or older to indulge) and is laced with natural stimulants like gingko, biloba, arginine, and guarana. Thankfully, customers are limited to one serving per day.

3. NO, YOU STILL CAN’T PLAY WITH YOUR FOOD – A Penn Laird, Virginia ice cream shop has developed a flavor sure to bring out the kid in all of us. The treat — called Play Doh Ice Cream — is dyed bright yellow with blue and pink cookie dough pieces scattered throughout. Customers claim the frosty dessert looks like the real thing (or the fake thing), but tastes a lot better than the Play Doh cones they made when they were kids.

4. THIS SOUNDS KIND OF CORNY – The Minnesota Corn Growers Association was anxious to drum up some attention at their tent at the state’s annual Farmfest and found the answer they were looking for when a communications assistant whipped up some corn-flavored ice cream. The corny concoction uses real corn to create a treat with just a hint of its namesake flavor. The corn ice cream was a hit at the August Farmfest, and the Corn Growers Association handed out recipes, just in case anyone wanted to recreate the a-maize-ing flavor at home.

Tags: flavors, ice cream, news
Posted in General | 83 Comments »

TWEET! TWEET!

Monday, August 17th, 2009

By a show of hands, has anyone here tweeted recently? Some of you know what we’re talking about. Others may be wondering if we’ve lost our minds. We’ll explain.

You may remember last month we briefly mentioned Turkey Hill’s new account on Twitter. Twitter is a social networking website that allows you to post short, 140 character announcements (or “tweets,” which are about as long as that first paragraph) several times a day. You can “follow” other people’s tweets and people can follow yours. You can also talk back and forth with each other. In short, it’s a lot of fun.

We use our Twitter account to announce Turkey Hill related news and to chat with fans and customers. We also have contests and ask trivia questions, which makes things fun too. So far, we’ve got over 1,200 followers, and our our herd is growing quickly every day. You don’t have to be a registered Twitter user to read our tweets (just visit us at www.twitter.com/turkeyhilldairy), but you do have to register to write your own tweets and to follow our tweets and the tweets of others.

Oh, and Turkey Hill’s own Giant Cow has her own Twitter account too! She moo’s a lot, but thankfully she has a cow-to-English translator. Check her out at www.twitter.com/turkeyhillcow. For now, we’ll leave you with a joke the Giant Cow told via her Twitter account the other day:

Moooooooo? Mooooo! (TRANSLATION: How does a farmer count
a herd of cows? With a Cowculator!)

Tags: ice cream, turkey hill, twitter
Posted in General | 45 Comments »

THE WORLD’S TALLEST ICE CREAM CONE?

Friday, August 14th, 2009

All of us have had an ice cream cone. All of us have also probably had a double scoop cone. Some of us have had a triple scoop and a daring few may have even tried a quadruple scoop cone (only to have it topple into your lap after a few licks). In the video below we see what appears to by a 72 SCOOP ice cream cone (give or take 10 scoops) being served up to a man on a boardwalk. Of course, with 72 scoops of ice cream, hilarity is bound to follow.

Tags: beach, comedy, ice cream, video
Posted in General | 49 Comments »

JULY WINNERS AND AN ICE CREAM TREAT

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009

Wow, could it be any hotter lately? It’s been almost 90 degrees the past several days here in Lancaster County. That’s definitely ice cream weather, but it’s the kind of ice cream weather that has you retreating to the comfort of air conditioning to enjoy your double scoop!

Speaking of double scoops, below is a list of the rest of the daily winners from our National Ice Cream Month celebration. Hope C. of Middle River, Maryland was our final trivia winner. Congrats, Hope! Here are our daily winners:

Tim S. (Akron, Ohio)
Lisa J. (Middletown, New Jersey)
Betsy R. (Rockland, Massachusetts)
Robert S. (Hummelstown, Pennsylvania)
Myra M. (Silver Spring, Maryland)
Shirley K. (Cleveland, Ohio)
Lauren M. (Brookline, Massachusetts)
Cyndee R. (Smithsburg, Maryland)
Lois S. (Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania)
Diane F. (Bayville, New Jersey)
Marcy L. (Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania)
Paige S.
Leila G. (Hainesport, New Jersey)
Cathy S. (Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania)
Cheryl O. (Richmond, Virginia)

Congrats once again to all our winners and thanks to everyone for joining us on the Ice Cream Journal in July. There’s lots more fun to be had in August and beyond. And now, to help beat the heat (at least mentally), here’s a picture of a delicious treat!

Tags: ice cream, turkey hill
Posted in General | 57 Comments »

WHAT YOUR FAVORITE FLAVOR REVEALS ABOUT YOUR PERSONALITY

Monday, August 10th, 2009

We posted this back in 2007, but we stumbled across these tests again and liked them so much, we decided to repost them. What does your favorite flavor say about your personality?

They say our preferences for just about anything –- from cars to houses to dog breeds -– can reveal a little (or a lot) about who we are as people. Apparently even your favorite flavor of ice cream can indicate whether you’re shy or outgoing, a leader or a follower.

We’ve managed to track down a few of these online tests and present them here for you to try for yourself. Most of the tests ask you to choose your favorite flavor and then tell you what that preference reveals about your personality. Seems simple enough. This test is one of our favorites.

This one works backwards by asking a series of questions and then revealing what flavor you are based on your responses. And this quiz takes the process one step further by telling you which flavors you are most romantically compatible with. From the looks of it, strawberry lovers have very few enemies!

Tags: ice cream, personality test, turkey hill
Posted in General | 60 Comments »

AUGUST PRIZE: THE MINI SHOT GLASS ICE CUBE MAKERS

Wednesday, August 5th, 2009

To be honest, we had never even heard of this month’s prize until one of our Twitter followers told us about a very neat treat she was making for a party. It’s a special ice cube tray that you can use to create tiny shot glasses made from frozen liquid. We bought two of the trays pictured below and will be giving them away to two commenters chosen at random from all the comments this month.

What you fill your frozen shot glasses with is up to you, but “mrsbenedict” from Lancaster, PA, made her glasses out of root beer and filled them with Root Beer Duetto. Pretty cool, huh? Below are some step-by-step photos she sent us. Thanks, mrsbenedict!

Oh, by the way, in response to our last “wacky ice cream news” entry, story #1 was the fake (about the ice cream vendor who gave his ice cream away for free in exchange for a donation to the “Jimmy Watusic Fun”). Congrats to Betsy R. from Rockland, Massachusetts on being our randomly selected winner!