i'm just here for the ice cream
did you even know there's 2 ice cream emojis?!
I missed last week’s newsletter due to being busy with orders and with life but we’re back this week, baby! All week, the universe has been telling me one thing and that thing is…
ice cream! 🍦🍨
Here’s the thing, I hate picking favorites of things. Recently, due mostly to filling out questionnaires on various dating websites, I’ve been forced to choose a favorite movie or book, but I always do so reluctantly. I think having favorites is weird and slightly childish but I can always choose - in fact sometimes volunteer unbidden - my favorite food: ICE CREAM.
Lots of ice cream related things have been popping into my life this week, so I shall share them with you!
I got an ice cream maker!
It’s not actually my first ice cream maker. For my college graduation, I received not one but 2 ice cream makers (thanks family!). I ditched one immediately and the other when I moved from California to New York 5 years ago.
I finally replaced them with the KitchenAid attachment one. Small as it is, it's the only kind that makes any sense to have in a New York apartment and still, it makes only marginal sense. Haven't tested it out yet, but maybe soon with…
The Van Leeuwen Cookbook!
For the past month or so, I've been watching what I eat in order to try and make weight for a weightlifting competition (spoiler: I did not). The competition was last Sunday and 3 blocks from that competition was a Van Leeuwen ice cream shop. You bet your ass I broke my diet with a double scoop of Honeycomb and Hazelnut Fudge Crunch.
While checking out, I spotted the bright blue, gold-foiled Van Leeuwen cookbook for sale on a teensy shelf in the back and made an impulse buy.
For me the flavors on offer at Van Leeuwen are a bit tame - I'm a bit of an ice cream flavor thrillseeker - but I've always enjoyed the texture, the richness. So from this book, I'm hoping to pick up some techniques and then go ham on my own mad flavor science.
Apparently the $30 I paid in person for it was pure highway robbery and you can buy versions for 1/3 the price online. It seems to be a not-so popular purchase in the store because as the cashier pulled a copy from the shelf, she told me it was her first time ever touching a copy.
Claire makes Ben & Jerry’s!
This week on Bon Appetit’s Gourmet Makes, Claire Saffitz makes gourmet Ben & Jerry’s. Honestly, I was a bit disappointed by this episode’s topic. Not only is just straight up ice cream too easy for Claire to make, but Ben & Jerry’s is often seen as the fancier flavor available in the store whereas the show is meant to focus on junk food. Here are some options that I think would be both more interesting and “junkier” food options:
Drumstick
Choco Taco
Good Humor Strawberry Shortcake bar
But maybe this was one of those episodes where they gave Claire a break. Even so, she may have been given too much of a break because she used pre-made pistachio paste to flavor the Christachio Moracchio pistachio flavor. PRE-MADE! scoff
It is still nice to see her knock one out of the park every now and then. And the labels they made for the pints were truly adorable.
I bought an ice cream pin
Snagged this cutie from Sheselle who I discovered through Instagram.
The Ice Cream Show
While flipping through Insta stories, I saw on Rebecca DeAngelis aka @pastryismybf’s story that she appears on an episode of Viceland’s The Ice Cream Show. DeAngelis is a pastry chef who used to host a series on Eater’s YouTube channel called Sugar Coated. I think that series is over but I still have a major internet crush on her.
As a millennial who has never ever paid for a cable/tv package to watch Viceland on TV, I will also probably never shell out the $2 per episode to watch it instead on Amazon. But hey, yay for her.
Btw, I think she’s particularly adorable at the beginning of this video:
Also apparently she did a couple videos for The Knot which is where I work technically, lol:
Quick shop update:
I was originally gonna skip Valentine’s day due to some upcoming travel but last minute I’ve decided to do a super small amount of pre-sales, just 2 designs, both involving enormous penis cookies 🤣🍆. Check em out in my shop
Anyhoo…
…that’s all for this week. My parting thought is that I could have sworn Viceland was included with HBO but I guess not. I don’t understand why Vice would start a traditional TV channel when their target demographic is the generation that birthed streaming. Who the hell is in charge of Vice’s media strategy?!
xx Shawna