Graeter's Cinnamon Ice Cream and Graeter's Egg Nog Ice Cream

Ok, so hopefully you saw the first few hurricane pints we opened, but in case the power went out (which it did, but only for a moment), I wanted to crack open the holiday Graeter's before I missed my opportunity to try them. So, may I happily introduce the following two pints generously sent over by Graeter's.

Behold, the rare sounding Cinnamon ice cream and the rare looking Egg Nog ice cream. I say rare looking because the pint doesn't even have an official design, it's just a generic pint with a sticker up top (no complaints since in this case it just makes it seem that more special). Now I expect to love the cinnamon and not love the egg nog, but let's dig in.

Sandy inspired Freezer Spelunking Part 1 with Wegmans, Wonka, and Maple's

Hello all, hope you are all doing well through Superstorm Sandy. Since my company wasn't in the direct line of the storm, we still had to go in  Monday morning. I will admit that for awhile things didn't look too bad here in central mass but thankfully they let us out at 2pm before the high point of the storm (and about ten minutes after the downpours started). I headed home, barely missed hydroplaning into a jackknifed car, ran into a very empty Walmart, and then finally made it home to a sleeping son and one very hungry daughter.

Hmmm, well the power has already been flickering for about 18 hours, so I'm thinking I need to go freezer diving before I wind up crying myself to sleep again overall the loss of my beloved flavors (just teasing, I was upset last year, but I didn't cry... much... ok, I'll stop, no tears, real men don't cry... except when...)

At first I was thinking of doing a Sandy inspired Showdown featuring....

Wonka Chocolate Mintropolis Ice Cream

and Maple's Fresh Mint Stracciatella Organic Gelato

2nd Street Creamery Tons of Brownies Ice Cream

[New for 2012, 2nd St has closed up shop before the 2015 ice cream season] So in Friday's post about our family trip to the White Mountains, I mentioned that way way way up on top of Mount Washington, they had ice cream in their freezer. Some of you recognized it, but I didn't want to delve into it too much until I was ready --- ok, now might be a good time to apologize for not covering 2nd St sooner. I had every intention to, I really did, it just became this cyclical mess of finishing my vacation post vs doing this post, and vice versa (I know, I know, I'm over complicating things, let's proceed).

Tada! This is "Tons of Brownies", one of ten flavors from 2nd Street Creamery, new found purveyors of super premium ice cream... Well, maybe I shouldn't say "new purveyors". You see, I believe 2nd St is the secret super premium weapon of the fine folks of Wells Enterprises, better known to most of us as Blue Bunny. It makes perfect sense really. Despite making their main stream ice cream in pint sizes, they don't have any super premium products BUT then on the flip side, most companies don't mix main stream and super premium branding. So, here we are, Wells is ready to dish up the high octane stuff.

Bears like ice cream?

(My apologies, this should have been posted four months ago)

Did you know bears eat ice cream? In particular North American Black Bears eating Gifford's Black Raspberry ice cream, but more on that later since that was at the end of our trip, not the beginning.

You see, we decided to head north last minute, in general because we badly needed a vacation but specifically because my daughter had no place to go as most summer camps hadn't started up yet. We've been meaning to do a big loop through the White Mountains again so off we went into the wild blue-ish sometimes grey yonder.

Since this is me we are talking about, I overplanned a bit, but I think it went better than last time.

Now it's a four hour drive to get to Conway, New Hampshire. Hampton Beach happens to be right around the two hour mark, so why not hit the beach on the way there. So we did. All things considered, it went surprisingly well. Digging in the sand with my kids takes me way back to my own childhood. The problem is my daughter wants to go in the water while my son wants to smush sand castles. The sand is fun but fairly large sized particules. The water is cool and refreshing but chock full of seaweed.... Choices choices choices and only about 90 minutes of play time before we turn into BBQ'd New Englanders (mental note: buy beach umbrella). We would have loved some ice cream on the way out of this traffic disaster of a tourist spot, but decided heading for the highway was the safest thing to do --- oh, side note: I've only been here once or twice as before, but nothing feels familiar about this place at all. How weird.

We continue not too much farther before realizing we are starved. We stop at a mall for a quick stretch and decide that Buffalo Wild Wings is a much better choice than McDonald's for an early dinner. Surprisingly it was quiet and they did a fine job of handling my sons allergies. As for me, well mine wasn't the greatest sandwich that ever lived, but I thoroughly enjoyed my BBQ Burger (that actually tasted like BBQ).

We travel the last 90 minutes or so only to discover our hotel room isn't ready yet... now keep in mind it's 7:30 at night and the room hasn't been cleaned yet. Wanting to scream profanities, we decided a better choice would be to hit Lickety Splitz ice cream and then come back in an hour. It's a neat little place with an indoor sundae bar and an outdoor playground.... and lots of bugs. Here, I came up with this joke:

"Where do May Flies go in June?"       "New Hampshire"

And that was the end of Day 1.


Day 2 started off with one of the worst breakfast buffets I've ever seen. My kids wound up eating cereal and my wife and I tried to engage in some unamusing and greasy foods. Yuck. The kids may have eaten free, but after you factor in our tickets, this meal was not worth $28.

Day 2 was all about Story Land, where fairy tale stories attempt to come to life. It's aimed for the younger kids with a mini train, boat rides, and a bunch of kiddie rides. Oh, and a decent small roller coaster and flume. You get the idea. 4-5-6 is probably the best ages for this place. I was going to take shots of all the places that had frozen treats in the park, but the heat and humidity were oppressive and kind of knocked the appetite out of me (I know, shocking!).

We did stop at this neat little rainbow ICEE place. You get these totally foolish cups that you can fill with up to 9 flavors of ICEE. That's right, nine flavors. My daughter had fun making a big mix and my son picked just blue raspberry and cherry... he then took one big sip and was done, kind of like I expected.

They also had a hawaiin shave ice place which seemed somewhat popular, and there were several places to snag softserve. There was even some funky dole fruity softserve which I should have tried since I've never seen it before.

Now I love the thought of trying new food at a new restaurant, but my shyness at unfamiliar places combined with my son's food allergies make this a moot point for the most part. That said, I couldn't help but stop at a place called the Muddy Moose. The parking lot was packed and kids where coming and going, so it has to be safe right? We went in and they did a nice job accommodating us. Overall we had a nice meal. In fact, my daughter's grilled cheese was so tasty, that we ordered a few more for dinner to go on Day 3.


Day 3 started off at another fun sounding place "The Blueberry Muffin". I was wondering why each pancake was $3.50... and then I realized it's because each one is the size of a dinner plate. The meal was decent, but I had hoped for fresh blueberries in my pancake, not a can of blueberries. Oh well, off to roam North Conway. Now we had debated taking a trip on the Conway Scenic Railroad, but my son wanted none of it (despite his love of trains). So we decided to shop the main street a bit. There's a old general store and a toy store and all kinds of neat little shops that you can burn up a day with. There's even a Ben & Jerry's there, though I was more interested in hitting up the White Mountain Cupcakery (but I decided to do the "smart" thing and hold off on cupcakes and have lunch instead).

After lunch, we did the drive of all (New England) drives... we headed for the Mount Washington Auto Road. 8 slow miles of "oh my word we're gonna off the edge!" driving excitement. I'm approaching the half million miles driven mark, and despite me teasing my wife the whole way up, I will admit I was a bit.... unsettled shall we say.

The good news is that it's pretty freakin' awesome on top of that mountain. The view is gorgeous and, well, man I could use some ice cream....

HAHAHAHAHA, ice cream!! That's right, the observatory on the top of the mountain has drinks, treats, and ice cream! Oh man, I really want to plopped down with a treat right now....  but I can't do it. I have three choices. Fudge bars (ehh, not in the mood), ice cream pints from a brand I've never heard of, and nut covered drumsticks. What people don't realize about food allergies is just how tough they are to live with. You constantly make tiny decisions all day long about minimizing nut exposure. I can't be eating this stuff with my son next to me. That's not fair to him. So I give up and head back outside.

Despite the 59 degree temp, the 35 mph wind, and the fact I'm wearing shorts and no coat, I could stay up here forever. Even though it took me 10-15 minutes to adapt to the thinner air, I still want to stay up here. It's peaceful and I love it. My daughter came with me to walk out to these stone trail markers they have and I kept looking at the path going "if only we could keep going" but we were ill prepared.

We head back down the mountain and enjoy the smell of burning brakes all the way down. That's right, D1 ain't slow enough and pumping the brakes only does so much good. We kept taking cooling stops until we made it back down the mountain. At least the view was nice when we stopped.


Day 4 means it's time to head northwest to Santa's Village. There's just one teeny problem...

Thunderstorms.

Sure the rain is intermittent, but I am unwilling to ride a metal attraction when there's thunder and lightning about. We wait 45 minutes hoping it will pass but it never does. Oh what to do? We should have stayed in North Conway and gone home the other way... but it's too late. Hmmm, well, there is one more attraction that my buddy always tells me to go see, it's called Clark's Trading Post... and they have bears... and not just any bears. These are very special trained bears that eat a very special treat during the show.

That's right, these bears work for ice cream

let me say that again - these bears work for Gifford's ice cream

Black Raspberry to be precise (good choice)

I don't want to show too many pictures and ruin the surprise of you stopping by, but there's nothing wrong with making a pit stop here. It's a neat little show and definitely something you won't really see anywhere else. They have some other stuff to fill up your day as well, including a sundae shop which unfortunately we did not get a chance to check out.

Ok, that's pretty much the end of our trip. Now when we got back home, I found the same ice cream that I saw atop Mount Washington, so tomorrow we are going to break into that pint and finally get it up on the blog, so come on back! (update: going to do a second scooping on sunday before releasing the post)

Perry's Pumpkin Pie Ice Cream and NEW Apple Pie Ice Cream

Perry's seems like a cool company with some cool flavors, but I'm relegated to a very tiny selection of their lineup that is served up by the only Wegman's in Mass. Thankfully for me, I was pleasantly surprised when Perry's sent over an email asking if I wanted some free samples of their fall flavors. I said yes in a heartbeat and patiently waited for my delivery.

Behold Perry's Pumpkin Pie Ice Cream and their new Apple Pie Ice Cream (which was discontinued a few years later). Nothing says fall like Pumpkins and Apples. I'm digging the black limited edition packaging. I mean, besides Breyers, who else rocks black?

Time to play with your ice cream

Alright, I'm way too tired to finish up my next review (hopefully tomorrow), so let me show you something I discovered the other day. See, it's been awhile since I did a search for ice cream games....

This is Ice Cream Jump! It's a free app from Retro Dreamer. It's a very simple game at the moment, but they are working on it and adding features as we speak. (The iTunes version got the update first, the android version is updated now).

Basically you tilt the phone side to side as the ice cream keeps bouncing and you have to go as high as you can. Let me just say that an apple a day keeps the bees away! This isn't going to keep your interest for an hour or two, but if you've got a few minutes to burn, this is perfect.

While I was playing Jump tonight, I realized you can also play Ice Cream Drop! It's another free game but only Android has an ice cream version right now (iTunes has a jell-o mold version...)

Basically you tilt the phone back and forth to slide the ice cream down lower and lower. You collect coins and letters and oh yeah, watch out for the bees again! Just like Jump, this is only meant to burn a few quick minutes before you move on. This one is definitely my favorite of the two because it's more developed. The coins you have collected can be used to enhance your ice cream in a way that almost reminds me of Temple Run.

So both games are cute and both are free (supported by tiny ads at the bottom and the occasional invasive ad). I do like these games despite their simplicity. I look forward to seeing what new features they add. Hopefully Jump! with catch up with Drop! in terms of options.

*security note: most of the retro games are minimally invasive, though the new ice cream drop does ask for the option to scan for running programs.

*disclaimer: this is not a paid advertisement, it's just dumb luck that I ran into these games.

Purely Decadent Cookie Dough A non-dairy frozen dessert review

[By Nick] Something we haven’t touched much upon on the blog is soy milk ice cream. I’m not sure why it’s taken me this long to write a review of such a product but I've finally picked up a pint from Turtle Mountain’s Purely Decedent line. Our friend Rodzilla has an obsession with their coconut milk version of cookie dough so even with my hatred towards all things coconut I was pretty intrigued by how good it looked, but then after Dubba’s review of the coconut version, I knew I wasn’t going to give it a shot. 

Little did I know, Turtle Mountain also produces that same cookie dough but in their soy milk line. So without further ado, I bring to you Turtle Mountain’s Purely Decedent Cookie Dough. Turtle Mountain describe this pint as “Vanilla dairy-free frozen dessert packed with scrumptious cookie dough chunks and crispy chocolate flakes.” It sounds like your standard cookie dough just with the addition of those chocolate flakes. I have experienced their chocolate flakes in the past and had a positive experience. I’m expecting that they’ll work well in this pint and add a bit of crunch that the pint would otherwise be lacking.

Graeter's Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

Ok, I just don't have the drive to do a Friday night fight (it takes way longer than you might think), so I headed down to the freezer to find something that we can cover quickly.

Yup, this free pint of Graeter's Chocolate Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip ice cream will do just fine. Now I don't really see a description but I'm thinking chocolate with a peanut butter swirl and big ol' graeter's chocolate chips mixed in. Graeter's Peppermint is probably the best peppermint ice cream I've had, so let's see what they can do with peanut butter.

Friendly's Graham Central Station A Frozen Dairy Dessert Review

Oh how I love the smell of graham cracker ice cream... mainly because I love the smell of crushed graham crackers, mmmmm, it's just one of those smells where I go to my happy place and envision the taste of a graham crusted pie... mmmm, pie.

Unfortunately Friendly's Graham Central Station is a frozen dairy dessert, but I just can't take walking by this week after week after week anymore. It's graham flavor and I just can't resist it. Wait, technically it's graham flavored frozen dairy dessert with chocolate flavored candy pieces and sweet graham cracker swirl. Yeah, let's just call it my graham flavored Kryptonite.

Lifeway Frozen Greek Style Yogurt Reviews

[By Nick, discontinued] Besides Kefir, Lifeway sent me over some Frozen Greek Style Yogurt as well. Yes, Lifeway has jumped on that bandwagon with everyone else. Really all we need now is Haagen-Dazs to join in and pretty much all areas of the freezer aisle will contain some sort of Greek yogurt. Back when they released the 3 new flavors of Frozen Kefir, they also expanded their portfolio by churning out 3 varieties of Frozen Greek Style Yogurt. The flavors are Blood Orange Swirl, Chocolate Swirl and Honey Swirl. They only sent me over the first two so my apologies to all the honey fans out there. Like their Frozen Kefir line, these also offer a slew of health benefits. Each serving has 110 calories, 1 gram of fat and 6 grams of protein with 99% lactose free as well as gluten-free.

Now the flavor that really peaked my interest was the Lifeway Blood Orange Swirl Greek Style Fro-yo. Chobani’s Blood Orange Greek Yogurt has to be one of my favorite Greek yogurts. Seeing this flavor being made into a frozen product really excited me.

Double shot of New Orleans Ice Cream Company

Hmmm, apparently this is the week of double shot reviews, though technically I do have an excuse for this one too. New Orleans Ice Cream company was nice enough to send over a nice selection of pints for me to try, but apparently this next pint unfroze at some point. I hate to waste, so we're still going to run through it anyway.

This is New Orleans Praline Crunch. Now the standard company would throw something out like "praline pecans in vanilla ice cream", maybe throw in some caramel, and be done with it... but not these guys. "Our delicately flavored praline ice cream with crunchy whole caramel pecans. A N'awlins Favorite". Read that again -- the base is praline flavored and the pecans are caramel flavored. That's just silly.

7-Eleven introduces new soap flavored Slurpee

Ok, technically it's not soap flavored, but it only took one sip and one sniff to realize this was no Slurpee. It's some kind of mystical carbonated frozen soap, probably more suitable for washing your car or SUV rather than for drinking.

7-11 Purple for the People Vanilla Slurpee

Am I being rough? A little, but 7-Eleven brings it on itself. It constantly uses the same tangy base and then adds a few mild flavors and pawns it off as the flavor of the month. Why bother? I mean, I get the whole getting people's attention thing. A purple Slurpee even got my attention. Sure, the whole vanilla thing was a little scary, but you have to try new things.... and it was purple.... and it was under two bucks.... and it was an excuse to go for a walk at lunch.

Now what part of this looks appetizing? Granted I can make it purple again by stirring it, but frankly that's just why too much effort for me. Actually, do you want to know what's really scary? I can see some people liking this. Like it'll trigger some happy soap related memory for them or something. "Look, this slurpee smells like grandma! Let's go visit her". See, there's a bright side to everything!

Verdict?  Soapy
Buy Again?  Not a chance

Moose Tracks Tuesday with Central Market Classics Ice Cream

Disclaimer: The goal of the following post is to inspire you to head over to the Moose Tracks photo contest and vote for your favorite entry --- ok, yes, technically I have an entry in the contest, and I would love your vote, but voting in general is what matters, so please choose whatever photo you like best --- you are allowed to vote once a day and the voting runs until October 14th.

So, Moose Tracks, what is it exactly? I say "Cherry Garcia" and you say "Ben & Jerry's". I say "Moose Tracks" and you think "tasty", but a brand doesn't necessarily come to mind because it's not a brand, it's more of a recipe shall we say. Any company can contact Denali Flavors and get the recipe and ingredients to make their own branded Moose Tracks, that's why you see it so much. I've seen it from Walgreen's, Hannaford's, Stop & Shop, Stone Ridge (Supervalu), Kemps froyo, and even Turkey Hill in their Stuff'd and Light product lines.

Now, when I say Moose Tracks, I mean more than just peanut butter cups and fudgy swirls, Denali now has over 40 flavors in it's arsenal. It's a nice looking and rather thorough lineup, but since it's a flavor and not a brand, tracking it down isn't always easy.

Two weeks ago, Denali's PR company contacted me and asked if I would post up the news about their photo contest. It's a generous contest where you submitted a shot of moose tracks in whatever setting and in return you can win one of three prizes. The top prize is a year of ice cream (and ofcourse the love and admiration of all your ice cream loving friends). I was happy to share the news, and me being me, I wanted to enter too. So, the big question becomes, where am I going to find all these funky flavors?

Price Chopper!! That's right, with only minimal luck at Stop & Shop and Hannaford's, Price Chopper was there to save the day with their Central Market Classics in house brand of premium ice cream. It's been a year since we had CMC in the freezer, so that's excuse enough to pick up two containers. Well, that and the "everyday low price" of $2.99 (which rang up as $4.19, but that's another story).

Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia Ice Cream Bar Review

[By Nick] So I feel like I was a little hard on Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia in my Edy’s Maxx review. Maybe I just needed to judge their flavor in another form, say an ice cream bar version? Well once again a trip to the gas station left me with a chance to try out something I never had before. I picked up Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia Bar and I was on my way.

Described as “Cherry Ice Cream with Sweet Dark Cherries & a Dark Chocolatey Coating”, B&J’s deviates from their normal formula by removing the chocolate flake component from their hard ice cream in favor of the dark chocolate shell. I never had a real problem with the chocolate flakes so it doesn’t really make much of a difference to me.

Friday Night Fight with Wegmans Cookie Dough

So I decided to see how convenient it would be to do my weekly shopping at Wegmans last week. As always, I spent a few minutes in the freezer aisle and decided to do something different. I know I usually say it's unfair to compare premium ice cream to light ice cream, but well, I couldn't help myself.

Meet Wegmans Extra Churned Cookie Dough Light ice cream and Wegmans Cookie Dough Premium Ice Cream. Notice how they are both tagged with magenta coloring, which is a nice little touch in my book. It's just a subtle way to train the weekly shopper that each color marks a certain flavor. That said, I gotta say...

Hood Cookies 'n Cream Ice Cream Sandwich Quick Review

I love classic ice cream sandwiches and it's pretty rare that you find an improvement, but Cookies 'n Cream sound like it might just work. At the very least, it's worth a try.

These are Hood Cookies 'n Cream Ice Cream Sandwiches
The box holds (8) 3.75 fl oz sandwiches and I want to say it was $2 or maybe $2.50

Graeter's Vanilla Chocolate Chip Quick Review

After stumbling on black raspberry chip and chocolate chocolate chip, I picked myself back up and fell in love with Graeter's after experiencing the excellence that is their plain vanilla flavor. I finally realized why people are crazy about this stuff.

The question is, have I grown enough to appreciate their Vanilla Chocolate Chip flavor?

Talenti Gelato Madagascan Vanilla Bean #2

[2018 Update] Make up your mind Talenti! This might be the first time that I've seen a flavor change it's name twice. I wasn't in a rush to pick this one up but I was digging the anniversary markings on the container (Mango and Chocolate also have cool containers). I think I got a freezerburned container though because the texture wasn't so good, and the flavor? Well, it reminded me of the vanilla extract in the cabinet. Hopefully my pint was a fluke!

Talenti Madagascan Vanilla Bean Gelato #2