dessert

The San Francisco Treat

August 1, 2009 By caroline in Uncategorized Tags: baking, chocolate, comfort food, cooking with kids, dessert, ice cream, snacks, sweets

by Caroline

It’s not, despite the jingle, Rice-a-Roni. No, the true, old school, San Francisco treat is an It’s-It, a chocolate-covered oatmeal cookie ice cream sandwich, originally invented by George Whitney in 1928, and sold for decades at San Francisco’s Playland-at-the-Beach. Now that the playground is gone, It’s-Its are made in a small factory near San Francisco airport. We’ve been driving past the factory for years, and finally the other day I looked at the website to see if they offer factory tours. Sadly, no. We drowned our sorrows in homemade It’s-Its:

Want a closer look? I thought so:

One Flat of Apricots. No Jam.

July 20, 2009 By caroline in Uncategorized Tags: baking, breakfast, dessert, fruit, ice cream, produce, sweets

by Caroline

I know I should make jam. Every summer the local paper runs an article about jam making, with lots of delicious-looking recipes and helpful instructions. Every summer my good friend invites me over to her kitchen to make jam with her. I know it’s not hard, and the fact that I don’t have good tongs for lifting jars out of a hot water bath shouldn’t stop me. My grandparents all made preserves of various sorts (jams, pickles, jellies), and now my parents do, too.

But somehow the insistent chorus of “It’s easy!” is not having the intended effect on me, and I continue to stick with the oven, not the stove.

Occasionally, the farmer who sells our biweekly mystery box offers little extras, produced by her friends and other farmers, for sale. A pound of homemade lard for instance (pass), or a dozen farm eggs (yes, please). Sometimes it’s cheese or honey (sign us up), and this past week it was flats of apricots.

I thought about it. A whole flat is an awful lot of apricots. On the other hand, apricots don’t need to be peeled; they don’t even need a knife to slice them — you can just crack them open at the stem end with your thumbs. Apricots can be frozen easily, or pureed, baked into things and of course, eaten fresh by the handful.

I signed up for a flat. We probably ate a dozen the first day, and continued to eat lots of the apricots fresh out of the box over the next few days. And here’s what I did with the rest of them:

And then I froze a tray in order to capture some of this summer gold for the rainy winter to come.
frozen

Let’s have a little Feast!

July 8, 2009 By caroline in Uncategorized Tags: chocolate, comfort food, dessert, ice cream, junk food, London, road food, snacks, sweets, travel

by Caroline

England is not generally known for its ice cream, and that’s ok — having contributed clotted cream (not to mention many fine cheeses) to civilization their dairy reputation is secure. Still, as in Paris, there’s ice cream everywhere here. From trucks that dish up soft serve cones (and, for an extra 70p, how can you resist the addition of a nice chocolatey Flake bar?) to corner store freezers with a fabulous assortment of frozen treats.

Meanwhile, after days of suggesting brightly (usually as a procrastinatory, “I don’t want to go into this museum” kind of tactic), “Let’s have a little feast!” Eli was delighted to find in Oxford an ice cream bar called Feast. He will never think of feasts the same way again.

And Only in Legoland, Windsor

July 6, 2009 By caroline in Uncategorized Tags: dessert, fast food, junk food, road food, snacks, sweets, travel

by Caroline

As Lisa made clear with her post last week, the rules are different on vacation. We stay up later, sleep in (or so we hope), and we indulge in sweet treats and extra snacks — and so it is for the kids, too.

Now I’ve always been a milk shake and ice cream girl, but it turns out my son Ben is more of a fruit ice guy. At home we make tiny popsicles with toothpick holders in ice cube trays, sometimes dropping fresh berries inside them. On our recent trip to England, he discovered ice lollies and at Legoland (where I thought I might truly pass out from heat stroke), when Ben asked for a “star slush” for lunch, I asked only, “what flavour?”

Kohr’s Frozen Custard

July 2, 2009 By lisa in Uncategorized Tags: dessert, fast food, Kohr's Frozen Custard

by Lisa

One of the iconic things about any childhood is ice cream, and we had a local shop in my home town that had no rivals, but when we went down the shore we always flocked to Kohr’s Frozen Custard stand on the boardwalk. In 1919 the Kohr’s brothers pioneered soft serve style ice cream, but the product is richer, creamier and more flavorful than the standard fare, and it contains eggs. It’s simple–vanilla, chocolate, orange, raspberry, usually eaten in twists–but (for me) highly addictive.

One of the more epic food memories of my childhood is of my best friend’s father, who used to make the hour+ drive to the Jersey Shore whenever he had a hankering for Kohr’s.

So of course we took the kids there. Of course they ate their cones before I could think to put my own down and snap a picture.

But the custard really does exist, and it really is that good, so if you find yourself in Point Pleasant, get one for yourself and see if you can hold off long enough to get a picture.

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