Talenti Gelato Toasted Almond #6

[In 2015, this became a limited edition flavor] I don't know about you, but I'm having a tough time coming out of the holiday slump. With five days off, it's hard to get the wheels turning again it seems. Case in point is this gelato review. I actually picked it up last Tuesday and dug right into it, I even had a story to go with it, but then I never got around to dumping the words from my cluttered brain onto this lovely blog here.

side note: Part of me always has fun writing the set up for a particular story, while other times I know it's boring to many of you. The question is, do you want to know that I almost got killed picking up this flavor? Oh, alright, killed is a little extreme, "almost left without a car" would be more accurate. Whole Foods was NUTS last week before Thanksgiving. I couldn't drive more than 3 feet before someone else walked or drove infront of me. At one point, someone just decides to back up without looking and I could have easily lost my front end. So so so so close. The neat part was, this little elderly lady comes walking through the parking lot and comes over to me as the foolish driver finishes pulling out. "that lady is a dingbat!" I just smiled, too funny. "Oh well, have a nice holiday" she says as she moves on with a smile. Nice lady. Anyway...

Time for my admiration of Talenti to take another step towards trying every one of their flavors (especially when it's on sale for just $3.99!). This one here is Toasted Almond gelato. "Toasted, caramelized almonds intermix with Talenti's classic italian gelato and homemade almond butter. The finished flavor embodies the traditional salty and sweet culinary tradition". I don't love almonds, but for some reason, I need to try this one right now!

Turkey Hill Double Decker Treat Review

Awhile ago I mentioned that Target had started carrying the Turkey Hill brand (though it might just be on the east side of the Mighty Mississippi). My timing is usually off, but I finally hit Target on the way home and picked up a pair of fancy ice cream sandwiches.

Turkey Hill Double Decker Ice Cream Sandwiches

Premium vanilla and chocolate ice cream layered between chocolate and vanilla wafers

Holiday Leftovers = No Effort Pumpkin Ice Cream

I have no idea why I never thought of this before.... that's not true.

See, in my mind, pumpkin pie is perfect and ice cream is perfect, so neither one really needs improvement. However, due to an "unfortunate mishap" (a.k.a. a terrible recipe), I find myself with a pumpkin pie that is way too spicy.

However can I make this monstrosity more mild?

ICE CREAM!

A scoop of pie and several scoops of ice cream equals a very fresh pumpkin flavored ice cream that is tastier than pumpkin froyo and also doesn't suffer that chewy fate of Edy's Pumpkin Flavor. You definitely have to mix it all together otherwise you wind up with two textures on your spoon that may not necessarily be agreeable with your personal preferences.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

May your turkey be juicy, your sidedishes fresh, and your desserts to numerous to count.

Also, it doesn't hurt if you have some cool family and friends to hang out with.

Cya!

Central Market Classics Cookie Dough Ice Cream ... made better with Biscoff!

I'm about to say what could possibly be the stupidest comment ever. Hold tight.

You know what makes a great cookie dough flavor ice cream?

Cookie Dough Flavor!!

Stupid right? Or at the very least, plainly obvious...

so, why is cookie dough so hard to master?

This is Central Market Classics Cookie Dough Naturally Flavored Premium Ice Cream. It's the in store brand of our local Price Chopper grocery store chain. They are a privately held company with over 100 stores and over 3 billion in revenue. Still, that doesn't mean they make their own ice cream... or maybe they do... maybe I should ask?

Checking in on the Ice Cream Industry

Happy Friday all. We are going to do something a little different today. I plan on commenting about something, but before I do, I decided to do a quick fact check. The funny thing is, instead of just one fact, I found a big old pile of them courtesy of Dairy Food magazine. Without further ado, let's check in with our big ice cream friends.

First, the Bad News

Let's start with some said news. Apparently Yarnell's Ice cream (of Arkansas) filed for Chapter 7 this summer and ceased operations on June 30th. While managing to sell some $46 million of ice cream in 2010, it has been a tough year for everyone. As of closing, they had $8 million in assets but almost $16 million in liabilities. I feel bad not just for the 200 or so products they put out, but for the over 200 people that lost their jobs (Note: some of the delivery drivers were picked up by Nestle). Yarnell's will not be coming back as the company trustee moved to sell off all company assets last month. 79 years of ice cream glory down the drain. If you've got a fond memory of them, or even just a favorite flavor, please let us know.

You would think that ice cream, the world's best frozen comfort food, would be doing ok in these tough times, but I guess that is not the case. As you know, my local Friendly's ice cream has also gone into Chapter 11, though thankfully they are still in business after closing a chunk of their restaurants. Ok, let's move on to better news.

So, who really are the top players?

Ok, so I stumbled upon the numbers for Oct 2009 through Sept 2010. It was in the Jan 2011 Dairy Foods issue with the numbers come courtesy of the SymphonyIRI Group.

So, all in all we are looking at $4 billion in US grocery sales (excluding Walmart for some reason). Now technically they cheat a bit and lump all the "Private Labels" together and they take up 25% of the market. With $3 billion left, how do the big guys stack up? Well, for some strange reason they report Dreyers / Edys into three groups, which seems odd, so let's put them all back together so that they come in at #1 with 14.7% of the market. #2 is Breyers at 11%. As Blue Bell likes to tout, they are only in 18 states, yet clock in with 7.5% of the market. #4 is the 14oz purveyors of Haagen-Dazs at 6.3%, chased by our tree huggin' buds Ben & Jerry at 5.5%. That leaves Blue Bunny at 3.4% and Turkey Hill at 3%. (I actually found some 2001 data as well and the rankings were pretty much the same, but then followed by Healthy Choice, Kemps, Mayfield, and Friendlys.).

If you wanted to be really tidy, you could lump Unilever's Breyers + B&J together, and then Nestle's Dreyers + H-D together, but then you still have #1 Unilever, #2 Nestle, and then #3 Blue Bell, etc, etc.

I guess the good news is that I'm covering all the major players except Blue Bell, which is kind of sad. Anybody want to guest review a few of their flavors?

One More Thing

Ok, now if you don't mind, i need to speak to all the industry people out there (but you feel free to write to your favorite company and tell them to get there act together, because there are a lot of offenders).

Dear industry peoples,
   It is almost 2012. I've been surfing the real internet since 1994, back when pretty much every page was black text on a gray background. Most people were kickin' it 14.4kbps style, so we all understood that pages needed to be simple. However, in a world of DSL, FIOS, and cable broadband, would you mind giving us a decent website. Let me give you a few examples.

You know Blue Bell, this site would have rocked (i.e. been acceptable) in 1998.

How exactly is this suppose to make me hungry?

Technically I can click on the year round flavors to get more info & a photo

but there is squat about non-current rotational flavors

Awesome! this would have been acceptable in 2000.

Those 1.3" wide carton images are just so tantalizing incredibly boring

(there is a spot to grab big images, but I shouldn't have to work for it!)

This site screams of readiness for 2012, good job Hudsonville!

Every time I go here I get flustered I can't try any of these colorful flavors.

This is how you rock today's internet people, get with it.

Breyers also has a nice new website while B&J's is always changing, though finding a flavor can be a little slow. Edy's / Dreyer's is archaic and H-D is decent but is showing it's age. I know things get harder as you have more flavors, but the internet is a visual medium and I don't want to burn 37 clicks to see the good stuff.

The internet matters. Websites matter. Social media matters. I know Turkey Hill and Perry's have blogs. Several companies use facebook... but please don't over do it on twitter. Try to keep your signal to noise ratio respectable on twitter. Shout outs are nice, but not once an hour (try to stick with contests, quips, pics, things that will make us smile). Oh, and if you don't have a web submission form or email address readily available (cough)bluebell(cough), please get one asap.

So, let's get ready for 2012! Heck, I'll help you out with free advice, all you have to do is ask!

THE END

Edy's ( Dreyer's ) Butterfinger Fun Flavor A Frozen Dairy Dessert Review

Alright everyone, this is an example of a flavor that doesn't exactly inspire me to blog. It's not terrible, and it does have one odd feature I need to talk about, but I had this six days ago and am now just getting around to it. Ofcourse, if I only talked about the flavors I liked (with my overly picky standards), this blog would get pretty boring!

Ok, here it is, a "single serving" of Edy's Butterfinger Fun Flavor. As you know, Fun Flavors are the "fun" way of saying Frozen Dairy Dessert. I've had the now retired Edy's LOADED Butterfinger, I've had Edy's Butterfinger MAXX, and now it's time for "Vanilla flavor with NESTLE BUTTERFINGER candy pieces and a peanut butter swirl". Oh man, I love how it just says "vanilla flavor" rather than "vanilla ice cream" (I know it's not ice cream, that's my point!)

Epic Fail... or just Bad Luck?

So, somehow, my wires have gotten a little crossed and there's not a whole lot of ice cream in the freezer right now... worse yet, none of it is terribly exciting. Oh, sure I had high hopes, but then it all fell apart.

See, I decided to sit back and relax with a cute little pint of Breyers all natural cookies and cream ice cream last night. Just me, the pint, and a tv show or two. As I opened the container and grabbed a shot, I noticed that rather than being white, the ice cream kind of had this greyish tint to it. I looked close and saw what appeared to be a gazillion ice cream crystals mixed in. That can't be good.

I dug in and my suspicions were right. The ice cream was downright terrible.... ok, ok, it was still technically edible, but Breyer's is getting a note from me about this batch. It's like watered down ice cream. No matter how far I dug down, it was still a solid mix of ice and cream. I've never seen anything like it.

Just to make things worse, before I had some last night, I gave my daughter a small bowl for dessert with some crushed Christmas cookies on top (they were on sale, I couldn't resist!). She still enjoyed it, but I think it's because the abundant cookie bits distracted her.

Stay tuned, I still have to finish a review from last Friday!

Thought this would be funnier...

I was looking through the cabinet last weekend when I realized I should probably check the date on some Keebler Fudge Shoppe Cones I bought. "Best By May 08 2011". Pretty sure I should resist the urge to eat these... I guess we should try and have a little fun before they go away.

Ahhh, too predictable!

Ok, better, but I'm still not feeling it

My stacking probably looks pretty easy until you realize the tops of the cones are not flat.

(but if you can alternate bumps so that they kind of interlock)

Ok, big finale!

Yes, I took the time to stack 12 cones

(and yes, there is a piece of tape on the 8th cone from the bottom so it doesn't tip)

Good night everybody!

Stone Ridge Creamery Tom's Twisted Pretzels An Ice Cream Review

Greetings all! Next up is a Stone Ridge Creamery flavor which you can find at any SuperValu owned grocery store --- with 2500 stores nationwide, I'm guessing there is one near you (it's Shaws for me). Now I've already had this flavor twice this week, and it's not that I'm still deciding if it's good or bad, it's that I'm debating just how much I'm enjoying it.

Too many words. Do I like it or love it? Let's find out.

This is Stone Ridge Creamery's Tom's Twisted Pretzel Ice Cream. You may remember that four Dream Flavors came out last year and were all created by SRC employees. This one is chocolaty covered pretzel pieces and a rich caramel swirled in caramel ice cream. As you know, I adore pretzels (in fact, I'm pretty sure it's genetic), so I can't believe I've waited this long to try this one.

Dairy Queen Caramel Nut Roll Blizzard November 2011 Blizzard of the Month

Have you ever wondered why they call it a blizzard? Yeah, sure, it's a crazy scene when that blender kicks in to twist everything about, but have you ever had a blizzard that kicks your butt like a shocking pre-Halloween Nor'easter?

DQ Caramel Nut Roll Blizzard

Gooey caramel, marshmallow and peanuts blended with creamy vanilla soft serve

Well my friends, the Caramel Nut Roll is the new shockingly furious blizzard to which all future blizzards will be compared. It's just that potent, or at least mine was. I only made it two thirds of the way through a small blizzard before waving the white napkin of surrender.

Sweet Scoops Pumpkin Frozen Yogurt

Shortest. Hiatus. Ever.

Ya... I've got a steel will don't I? I went all of a few days before walking by a frozen pint and going "I gotta get that!" Ok, it's a little more complicated than that, so we will start at the beginning.

So, there I was, hungry, but tired of sandwiches from home and in no mood for another fast food burger. Sure, I could go the foo foo route, but I haven't been to Roche Bros grocery store in a while, so I think it's time for another visit.

I head into the store and instead of going straight, I break left and discover a giant section of meals ready to eat! Jackpot! I go with the steak "tips", corn, and (disgusting) rice florentine. Next, I grab myself a fat free chocolate Nesquik (which I won't do again any time soon) and then decide to head for the freezer aisle.

Now hopefully no one noticed, but I stopped for a second, took a deep breath, and then slowly began to wander down the freezer aisle. No rushing, just gingerly looking at each and every pint. I tried to focus on what I was really in the mood for since I haven't actually had any ice cream since, well, last Friday, and technically that was froyo (in my world, that's an eternity).

Hmmm, that B&J Creme Brulee might be interesting. I could go H-D but they don't have anything catching my eye. Ok, well, they do have an assortment of more local flavors.  This might work. You know, I always see Sweet Scoops at Whole Foods. Oh wait, it's frozen yogurt? I totally forgot that.

Mint? nah.

Madagascar Vanilla? ehhhhh.

Black Raspberry? that could work.....

PUMPKIN?
PUMPKIN FROYO??
LIMITED EDITION?

Oh yeah, time to man up and give this one a shot!

Here it is, and as you can see, some nice orange highlights help this pint catch your eye. Sweet Scoops All Natural Limited Editon Pumpkin with other natural flavors sounds like it could very well rock. "Pumpkin Puree, molasses, and spices make this flavor a seasonal best seller. Imagine grandma's pumpkin pie without the crust". Wait, no crust? Iunno, I do love my crust pieces, but I'm going to give this a try anyway.

Thanks everyone

Thanks for all of the encouraging words everyone, it means alot to me. I've always been hard on myself and the blog is no different. I know I can't be the best writer, or the best photographer, but that doesn't mean I still don't hold myself accountable. I often get frustrated with myself if I'm not keeping up with current events, new flavors, or just keeping an eye out for frozen treat reviews from fellow bloggers.

Actually, it's not just that. I've had a redesign percolating for at least 2 months now and have yet to implement it. Actually, I've got about three different ideas in my head, all requiring different amounts of skill and time, but none of them are getting finished. I know the blog could be better if I could just get my act together.

Did you know that I am just 4 posts away from my 500th review? That's just crazy! In fact, This message right here is post #811. I've seen blogs that haven't hit 80 posts, let alone 800. It's scary to think how much time and money I've sunk into this blog --- not that I'm worried about the money per say. I haven't stressed this in awhile, but a three dollar blizzard is alot cheaper than an eight dollar "value" meal for lunch.

Basically I think this blog should do 1 of 3 things. If a product is awesome, it should inspire you to try it. If a product is terrible, it should provide fair warning. If a product is in the middle, a post needs to be robust enough to help you make your own decision. I guess I need to realize that not every post can be a novel or a revelation. (oh I keep making typoes)

My love of ice cream has not faded, it's just not that easy to walk down the freezer aisle anymore. I need to get back to "ok, what do I want tonight?" and not "what's best for the blog right now?" I don't do it all the time, but at this point I do it way more than I should. I bought a second container of Blue Bunny Cookie Dough a few weeks ago and that was the first time in a couple of years that I bought again rather than pick something new.

I need to step back, breathe, and... well, have fun and dream big again. Over the summer I dreamed up the idea of the "Great American Ice Cream Road Trip". You know, pile the family in an RV and film all the great ice cream stands across this great nation of ours... yeah, I don't know how exciting that would be for anybody else, probably not enough faux reality tv tension to keep it exciting. Another dream would be to team up with a small ice cream shop. I would drive traffic to their site and in exchange I get to make a rotating flavor or two (I'd dream bigger but I realize running an ice cream shop is hard work).

Ok, off I go again, I just had to say thanks everyone. Maybe I'll work on that redesign this weekend... if I'm not painting the bathroom or playing with the kids (and trying to enjoy some belated trick or treating). So much to do, so little time!

State of the Freezer Address The Empty Edition

Man oh man am I tired.... I mean like really, super, duper, "am I still awake?" tired. 36 hours without power means one chilly night of sleeping and then a second night that turned into a sleepover at the in-laws (big thanks to them and everyone else that offered us assistance).

Thankfully the power came back on in the middle of last night, but after 36 hours, I am uncomfortable eating anything left in the upstairs fridge. Ohhhh man, time to fill up the trash can. I should have taken a picture before I started.

Poor spongebob, you took quite the beating, didn't you?