Icecream Journal

Valentine’s Day is fast approaching, which is one of the reasons why a recent article caught our eye. The story is about the romantic qualities of ice cream and, while we’ve never thought of ice cream in that way, apparently some people have. Jeni Britton Bauer of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams in Columbus, Ohio is one of those people.

“Ice cream is an extremely sensual experience,” said Bauer in an MSNBC.com article. “It’s cold when it first hits your lips — that sets everything off — then the sweetness comes out. After that, the flavor absorbed by the butterfat carries that scent to your nose.”

The article noted that Bauer’s store has served as the backdrop for several marriage proposals and one wedding. Some happy couples even used her ice cream at their wedding, “either by replacing the traditional cake with tasty scoops or incorporating it at the altar, holding ice cream cones and wrapping arms around each other to lick their significant other’s cone in an act of unification.”

Now that sounds like a wedding we’d like to be invited to!

It’s February, and that can mean only one thing: baseball’s Spring Training starts this month! Okay, it probably means other things to other people (don’t forget about Valentine’s Day, gentlemen), but baseball is high on our list here at the Dairy because of our Phillies and Yankees sponsorships and because football season is officially over.

Also high on our list is cute ice cream scoops like the one we’re giving away as this month’s prize. It’s the Boston Warehouse Frozen Friends penguin ice cream scoop and, as you can see above, it’s pretty darn adorable (that’s the back and front of it). The little guy is even weighted in the handle so you can stand him up instead of tossing him in the drawer with the rest of the not-cute kitchen utensils.

We’ll choose one comment at random from all the comment left on the blog this month to receive this frosty pal. Good luck!

We’ve been talking a lot here at the Dairy offices about what entries we’ll be posting on the Ice Cream Journal over the next few months (and beyond). A very smart Turkey Hill intern had a great suggestion: Why don’t we ask you — our readers — what you’d like to see more of on the Ice Cream Journal?

We were a little stunned by the simple yet brilliant nature of the idea. After all, you’re the reason we write the blog and your comments are the best part of it, so why wouldn’t we ask you what stories should be covered more often?

With that question in mind, please take a few seconds to sound off in the poll in the right hand sidebar and offer some expanded input with a comment below. Your feedback will help shape the Ice Cream Journal in 2012 and beyond!

The following entry was originally posted in 2010 and recounts a special visit to the Dairy by a special Turkey Hill fan. It’s such a heart-warming story, we thought it deserved a second look.

Previously, we wrote about a 91-year-old woman whose doctor remarked that he’d never in all his years of practicing medicine seen someone of her age with so much energy and liveliness. We also revealed that the super woman in question ate Turkey Hill ice cream every day.

We reached out to the ice cream lover the other day with a phone call and she was more than happy to talk to us. Her name is May, she sounds not a day over 60, and she lives in a retirement community in New Jersey. Early in our conversation, she wanted to set the record straight about her age: she’s not 91 years old, she’s 95 years old and healthier than ever!

When asked about her favorite ice cream flavor, May replied that good old fashioned Turkey Hill Vanilla & Chocolate (the combo flavor) is her go-to frozen treat. She also revealed that she eats three containers of Turkey Hill ice cream each week and that she’d never visited Lancaster County, which prompted an invitation from us to visit our neck of the woods and stop by the Dairy for a VIP tour. This week, May took us up on the offer and visited the Dairy with her son and granddaughter for a tour (that’s her above with Ernie).

Before we ended our conversation with May, we asked her to reveal her secret to a long, healthy life, to which she replied simply, “Think positive and eat ice cream.” Hard to argue with that!

The other day, the conversation here at the Dairy offices turned to ice cream world records. One thing led to another, and someone suggested that maybe Turkey Hill should take a shot at one of the records. It’s not a bad idea. After all, if you’re going to attempt a world record, what could be more fun than an ice cream record?

We paid a visit to the Guinness Book of World Record website to see what the record books hold for ice cream feats, and the following is what we found. Which record do you think sounds the most extraordinary, and which one do you think Turkey Hill should take a shot at? We can’t say for sure if we’ll try it, but your input might inspire us to give it a shot!

1. “Most ice cream scoops thrown and caught in one minute by a team of two” — The record for most ice cream scoops thrown and caught in one minute by a team of two is 25, achieved by Gabriele Soravia (thrower) and Lorenzo Soravia (catcher) (both Germany), on the set of Guinness World Records – Die größten Weltrekorde in Cologne, Germany, on 1 September 2007.

2. “Most ice cream scoops balanced on a cone” — The most ice cream scoops balanced on a cone is 26 and was achieved by Terry Morris (New Zealand) on the set of Zheng Da Zong Yi – Guinness World Records Special in Beijing, China, on 20 May 2010.

3. “Most ice cream cones prepared in one minute” — The most ice cream cones prepared in one minute is 19 and is held by Mitch Cohen (USA) who broke the record on the Food Network TV show Paula’s Party on 28 June 2007.

4. “Most flavors of ice cream displayed together” –The most varieties of ice cream displayed together is 521 by the UPA Gelatieri Padova at the 500 tastes of solidarity event, Cavour Square, Padova, Italy on 28 March 2004.

5. “Longest ice cream dessert” — The longest ice cream dessert was a sundae measuring 39.77 m (130 ft 6 in) prepared by The Kids Club (USA) in Brunswick, Georgia, USA, on 12 November 2009.

6. “Longest chain of people licking ice cream” — The longest chain of people licking ice cream was achieved by 2,694 participants at an event organised by Augustana College (USA) in Rock Island, Illinois, USA, on 20 April 2010.

7. “Largest ice cream sculpture” — The world’s largest ice cream sculpture, shaped like an 18th century ship, weighed 925 kg (2,039.4 lb), used 1,715.54 litres (453.2 gal) of chocolate and vanilla ice cream and was created by Jacques Tokar, Antoine Tokar and Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream (all USA). The sculpture was unveiled at Robert Louis Stevenson Elementary School, Burbank, California, USA on 14 November 2002.

8. “Largest (tallest) ice cream cone” — The largest ice cream cone measured 2.81 m (9 ft 2.63 in) in height and was achieved by Mirco Della Vecchia and Andrea Andrighetti (both Italy) during an event organised by Rimini Fiera and sponsored by Sigep, Fabbri, Incisoria Imar, Icam, Martellato (all Italy), at Rimini Fiera, in Rimini, Italy, on 22 January 2011.

For those of you who were less-than-appetized by Monday’s entry about mastic ice cream (mastic = piney fresh tree sap), we offer the photo above of a much more tempting scoop served in an sprinkle-encrusted cone. Unlike Monday’s entry, we don’t have to ask “would you eat it?” because we know almost everyone would!

As for the sprinkle cone, which uses a layer of chocolate to capture the sprinkles, we have just one question: Why don’t more ice cream shops use cones like that?!

By the way, the final two winners in our 12 Days of Ice Cream celebration finally claimed their prize. They are Yaritza R. of Nanticoke, PA (the ice cream pillow) and Valerie B. of Albrightsville, PA (the ice cream scoop). Congrats!

A somewhat recent Village Voice blog entry revealed “5 weird ice cream flavors to try in New York City.” Among the strange treats is a flavor called mastic ice cream, which is made by a Manhattan ice cream shop called Victory Garden. The shop makes all of its ice cream with goat’s milk, which they describe as having a “delicious, slightly sweet flavor.”

For those who aren’t familiar with it, mastic is a tree resin (like a sap). The earliest uses of hardened mastic were as a chewing gum. Today, mastic is used as an ingredient in various dishes in countries like Greece, Turkey, and Lebanon. So how does mastic ice cream taste? The Village Voice offers this input: “Naturally, piney flavors shine, plus the texture is slightly chewier than most ice creams.” That’s a picture of it above with a sour cherry sauce and chopped pistachios.

It doesn’t sound bad if you like your ice cream piney fresh, which leads us to the ultimate question — Would you eat it?

Ice cream is not made here, but it is tested to ensure it meets Turkey Hill’s quality standards. In the photos below we see Turkey Hill lab techs Cindy and Brenda performing tests with some fancy looking equipment. The technicians test ice cream, iced tea and milk to make sure they contain the correct amount of nutrients, in addition to meeting several product safety conditions.

In the bottom photo, Brenda performs a test on some cream that has arrived at the Dairy to make sure it meets Turkey Hill’s standards. Employees who work in the mixing room communicate with the lab techs to make sure the cream has met our quality standards before it can be used to begin the ice cream making process.

This is as difficult for us to announce as it is for some of you to hear, so we recommend you grab a bowl of ice cream and take a seat in your favorite chair before reading on. (You should also know that there’s good news at the end.)

Okay, here goes: Turkey Hill will not be creating the Turkey Hill wall calendar this year.

Trust us, it wasn’t an easy decision to make. We’d been making the free calendar for the last 12 years – as well as off and on throughout the 1940s and 50s – and we’ve enjoyed creating it as much as you enjoyed receiving it (sort of like our ice cream and iced tea). The calendar was a lot of fun and a wonderful way to build relationships and stay in touch with fans throughout the region, and we appreciated how they’d become fixtures in homes, offices, and all sorts of other places. But as the size of the mailing list grew, and as Turkey Hill evolved from a local ice cream maker to a national one, we needed to find more efficient ways to stay in touch with our fans.

Now for the good news. Turkey Hill’s marketing department is hard at work creating a new keepsake, which should be available for distribution in February. The new mailer is like the calendar in many ways: It’s free, it’s fun, it’s designed to be a year-round reminder of Turkey Hill, and it still has coupons for Turkey Hill ice cream and iced tea!

Those of you who were on the calendar mailing list will automatically receive the new keepsake, which we will offer a sneak peek of in a blog entry next week. (Hint: Like the calendar, it will help you remain organized and on task).

Stay tuned, and feel free to grab another bowl of ice cream – to celebrate the arrival of the new mailer, of course!

Those of you who live in our neck of the woods are no doubt familiar with what’s coming up this weekend: The Pennsylvania Farm Show.

The Farm Show, hosted at the Farm Show Complex in Harrisburg each January, is one of the biggest shows of its kind in the nation, and a good time for anyone who enjoys animals, family fun and good food (Farm Show snacks are legendary!). This year’s Farm Show will kick off this Saturday, January 7 and will run through Saturday, January 14. Check out the Farm Show website for directions and more information.

As usual, Turkey Hill Dairy will be in attendance and our Giant Cow will be parked in front of the Farm Show Complex. We’ll have a booth inside the Main Hall  too, where we will be giving away free samples of a brand new flavor – Double Cookies n’ Cream. That’s right DOUBLE Cookies n’ Cream! (Vanilla flavored frozen dairy dessert stuffed with chocolate cookie pieces and crunchy chocolate cookie swirl)

As an added bonus this year for our blog readers, we’ll be giving away FREE full-sized containers of Turkey Hill ice cream (in the form of a coupon) to the first FIVE people who visit the Turkey Hill booth each day and mention the secret password “ERNIE.”

We hope to see you there!