Family means more to me than anything in the world, which is why Thanksgiving is such a special day of the year.

I’ve got a lot to be thankful for, too. As you can imagine, being raised in a big family always helped to create some fond holiday memories. My grandfather, Armor, who founded Turkey Hill nearly 80 years ago, and my grandmother, Mary, had seven children, including my father, Emerson. My father and mother, May, had five children of their own and I and my wife, Cheryl, have four. In a family that size, Thanksgivings can be hectic, but a chance to come together and share our thanks is always worth the extra effort.

But I’ve learned over the years that it’s not the size of your family that creates memories, it’s the bond you share with the people you love. That’s the real ingredient in lasting memories. And if it’s about the bond you share with the people you love, then your family can include neighbors, members of your church, even co-workers.

In that regard, I consider the many men and women who make up the Turkey Hill team to be a part of that close-knit group and I pray that each of them – and each of you – have a wonderful Thanksgiving filled with love, laughter and, most importantly, family.

Warmest Regards,
Quintin Frey
President, Turkey Hill Dairy

(Photo courtesy of Lumpy Golightly on Flickr.)

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Just a few announcements today. Enjoy!

TRIVIA ANSWERS – Congrats to Shannon S. of Tacoma, WA for being the winner of last week’s trivia contest. The answer to the trivia questions are:

The Frey family purchased the farm on which Turkey Hill founder Armor Frey first started his business from Thomas and Richard Penn.

The TV personality and entrepreneur who lived in a spacious farmhouse called “Turkey Hill” for more than 30 years is Martha Stewart.

The Turkey Hill ice cream flavor that contains Keebler Fudge Shoppe Grasshopper Cookies is Light Recipe Skinny Minty.

The answer to the crazy equation is 7.

The Philadelphia parade “invaded” by the Turkey Hill Giant Cow was the Mummers Parade and the Venice Ice flavor the announcers were eat is Raspberry.

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RECIPE CONTEST REMINDER – Only one week left to submit your recipes using either Ginger Snap ice cream or any other flavor of Turkey Hill ice cream. We’ve already broken last year’s record for recipes entries (more than 160 and counting). Check out the original blog entry for more details!

This recipe is adapted from one submitted by Cheri F. of Sinking Spring, PA during last year’s holiday recipe contest. In Cheri’s recipe, it used Egg Nog ice cream, but we chose to feature it here because you can also use other flavors of ice cream (and it sounds like a great recipe!).

It’s also simple to make… and that’s always a good thing. If anyone makes this, let me know how it turned out! By the way, the photo below isn’t a picture of this exact recipe, but it is a multi-layered ice cream cake and similar to how this might turn out.

CHOOSE YOUR FAVORITE FLAVOR ICE CREAM PIE

CRUMB CRUST  INGREDIENTS & DIRECTIONS

(You can purchase a pre-made crust, but making your own is fun and easy.)

1 1/2 cups of fine crumbs from ground up graham crackers
6 tblsp melted butter (3/4 stick)
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

Mix all four ingredients and spread evenly in pie pan. Press firmly onto bottom and sides. Freeze for at least an hour before adding filling.

FILLING INGREDIENTS AND DIRECTIONS

Pack approximately half a container of your favorite Turkey Hill ice cream flavor into the shell with the back of a large spoon (you may need to let the ice cream soften before doing this). Sprinkle half a cup of crushed vanilla wafer cookies (or any cookies, if you’d like) over the ice cream. Pack the remaining ice cream (perhaps a different flavor than the first) over the crushed cookies, mounding it in the center. Sprinkle lightly with more crushed cookies. Freeze for at least 2 hours prior to serving. When ready to serve, top with whipped cream if desired.

The two factors that contributed to ice cream’s meteoric rise in availability in the mid 19th century was the invention of machines to make ice and the lower cost of sugar. Prior to this period, ice was harvested from natural sources and sugar was a costly luxury item. Thankfully, we found a way to make both factors more readily available and affordable. Otherwise, we’d all be paying $45 for an ice cream cone today.

It’s time for another edition of ice cream trivia. Considering this month’s Thanksgiving holiday, we thought we’d continue the turkey day theme with trivia questions dedicated to Turkey Hill. Send your responses to icecreamjournal@gmail.com or use the Ask Ernie link on the right. Three people who answer all the questions correctly will be chosen at random to receive some free Turkey Hill ice cream. Good luck, and feel free to use the internet to find the answers!

1. From whom did the Frey family purchase the farm on which Turkey Hill founder Armor Frey first started his business?

2. What TV personality and entrepreneur lived in a spacious farmhouse called “Turkey Hill” for more than 30 years?

3. Which Turkey Hill ice cream flavor contains Keebler Fudge Shoppe Grasshopper Cookies?

4. What’s the total of the following equation (sorry about the math): The year a Turkey Hill delivery truck “took an unguided trip into the pond out back” MINUS the year Glenn, Emerson and Charles Frey purchased Armor Frey’s budding Turkey Hill business PLUS the number of dollars in cost of a Turkey Hill ice scraper MINUS the total number of Venice Ice flavors currently available according to the Turkey Hill website.

5. Which Philadelphia parade did the Turkey Hill Giant Cow “invade” according to a video posted online AND which flavor of Venice Ice are the parade announcers eating while they watch the Giant Cow?

By the way, the answer to which story was fake from last week’s wacky ice cream news is “Whose Got the Sprinkles?” (the one about the ice cream truck accident in Manchester, England). Which means the following stories are true: Yes, there is an ice cream being developed to help patients undergoing chemotherapy; Yes, an 8-year-old boy did get lost and was found indulging himself in the ice cream aisle of his local grocery store and; Yes, a Missouri drug store really is selling ice cream for 5 cents a scoop!

Reading, as they say, is fundamental. (Or FUNdamental, according to the posters you may see in many elementary schools.) Speaking of reading and fun, an elementary school principal in Plattsmouth, Nebraska wanted to reward his students for logging 13,410 minutes of reading in the Scholastic Reading Program, so he let 15 young scholars, whose names were chosen at random, turn him into a human ice cream sundae. Check out the photo below, courtesy of The Plattsmouth Journal and photographer Brent Hardin and the complete story here. Something tells me if our bosses let us turn them into human ice cream sundaes, we’d all be reading a lot more too!

You don’t realize how much weird ice cream-related news there is until you start combing through the archives of the Internet for it. Not old stuff, either. I’m talking about recent weird news. As always, three of the stories below are 100 percent true and one was made up by the Turkey Hill team. Leave a comment with your guess about which is the frozen fake.

WHO’S GOT THE SPRINKLES? – Highway crews in Manchester, England are describing it as “a big mess” and ice cream lovers were tempted to stop their cars and grab a spoon when a frozen foods truck carrying more than 10,000 half gallon containers of ice cream overturned on a highway just outside the city. No one was injured in the accident, but it did send half of the truck’s frosty cargo tumbling out onto the three-lane road and bring traffic to a standstill until the melee could be cleared.

THE MIRACLE DESSERT – Researchers at New Zealand’s University of Auckland have developed an ice cream with two active dairy ingredients that combine to address the unpleasant side effects of chemotherapy. The helpful treat, called ReCharge, is available in strawberry flavor and is being tested with cancer patients in six New Zealand cities.

LOST AND FOUND – An 8-year-old Australian boy who disappeared from his bedroom in the middle of the night was found a few hours later pretty much where’d you’d expect to find a missing 8-year-old. Melbourne police picked the barefoot boy up at 3:50 am after he’d wandered into a 24-hour grocery store and began helping himself to some chocolate ice cream in the frozen treats aisle of his local grocery store. The child was reunited with his parents a short time later.

IT’S LIKE 1935 ALL OVER AGAIN! – In an effort to bring the old days back to life (and more customers through the door), a drug store in Ava, Missouri has set up an old fashioned soda fountain and has begun selling ice cream for five cents a scoop (limit three scoops per person). As expected, most of the fountain’s customers are kids from a nearby school who are anxious to put their allowance to good use.

Last week, Lancaster County’s local NBC affiliate, WGAL-TV, stopped by the Dairy to tape a story for the nightly news about how it’s “business as usual” for Turkey Hill despite the current economic times. That’s right, as you’ll see in the story, we’re still hiring and doing quite well thanks to our great customers.

The story shows a lot of behind-the-scenes action at the Dairy, including the production of our newest Limited Edition holiday ice cream, Ginger Snap. You might also notice in the story that the names below some of the people are incorrect. The man they say is Ernie Pinckney is really Eric Rotz, and the man they call Eric Rotz is, of course, Ernie Pinckney. That’s a shot of Ernie below from the story (check out the full video here). He loves this kind of stuff!

P.S. – Some of you are asking how we’re judging the recipes in our Ultimate Holiday Recipe Contest. It’s a good question. Here’s how it’ll work:

We’ll review all the entries and determine four finalists (two from each category) based on the creativity of the recipe, simplicity (not too easy, not too hard) and the overall appetite appeal of the recipe. Once we have our four finalists, we will personally prepare the finalist recipes in order to take photographs. Then each finalist recipe and photo will be published on the Ice Cream Journal in its own blog entry from December 7-10. On December 11, we’ll open a poll on the blog and readers will have one week to vote for their favorite recipe. On December 18, we’ll announce our winner!

A lot of people believe in the power of astrology and horoscopes, including several members of the Turkey Hill team here in the office. That’s why it was no surprise when one of our most passionate horoscope reading co-workers found this ice cream-themed Zodiac chart. We’re not sure if the chart was made purely for entertainment (some may say all Zodiac charts are), but it seems pretty accurate for most of us.

For example, it describes Tauruses as loving decadent chocolate-covered ice creams, while Virgos prefer options that cater to their healthier lifestyles. Sagittariuses and Aquariuses like exotic flavors while Pisces sometimes have trouble making up their minds about which flavor to indulge in.  (Don’t we all?)

Check out the complete listing here and let us know if it comes close to predicting your ice cream eating habits.

P.S. – The entries in our Ultimate Holiday Recipe Contest are pouring in! We’ve got more than 60 recipes already, with more arriving every day. To recap, send your best recipes using Turkey Hill ice cream to icecreamjournal@gmail.com. The categories are Ginger Snap (recipes using our Ginger Snap holiday flavor) and Everything Else (recipes using any other Turkey Hill ice cream flavor). Four finalists will be chosen to receive a one month supply of ice cream and one grand prize winner will receive a year’s supply of ice cream. More details can be found here. Good luck!

The following will be sent out via e-mail to our mailing list in a few days, but we thought we’d announce it here on the Ice Cream Journal to give you all a head start!

Last year we asked you to send us your best recipes featuring our Limited Edition holiday flavors and you answered the call by submitting more than 150 recipes. We called it the Ultimate Holiday Recipe Contest (the best recipe got a year’s supply of Turkey Hill ice cream!) and it’s back again this year.

Here’s how it works. All you need to do is create a holiday recipe for either of two categories:

1) Recipes using our new Ginger Snap holiday ice cream flavor (in stores soon)

2) Recipes using any other Turkey Hill ice cream flavor

Your recipe can be anything you’d like – a drink, a pie, or something entirely different! The only requirement is that it includes Turkey Hill ice cream, preferably as the main ingredient.

E-mail your entries, along with your name and address, to icecreamjournal@gmail.com before Monday, November 30 to be entered to win the grand prize – a one year supply of Turkey Hill ice cream. The best recipes will be featured on the Turkey Hill website and the four finalists (each of whom will receive a one month supply of ice cream) will be posted on our blog, the Ice Cream Journal. Blog readers will then vote to determine the winner!

Good luck and feel free to submit as many recipes as you’d like!

P.S. – For inspiration, check out the ice cream recipes page of the Turkey Hill website.