Sunday, May 15, 2022

State of the Freezers Address
The leaky 14th anniversary edition


 Man, I should have wrote this last week on the official anniversary date because it was cooler and less humid.... and also Mother's day, so that kind of took precedence.



State of the upstairs freezer: leaky! ok, not so much leaky as overflowing. The drain line apparently froze over and there was a frozen puddle in the freezer yesterday. I've never had this happen before. After yesterday's mid-day ice cleanup, I opened the freezer around 8pm to find a fresh new puddle (still liquid). I soaked that up. I'll probably have to pop off the back cover of the freezer at some point and try to clear the line. Fun times!

What's in this one: Turkey Hill as always. Van Leeuwan Walmart exclusives (pizza is hiding). There is a pint of Talenti's key lime pie gelato hiding, but I'm just never in the mood for it. I need to toss those freezer burned dibs. Still no urge to finish those gelato cups from Luigi's. Crud, I need to post that review of the Edy's you see...

See, I only work on the blog about once a week, which is kind of what I said for the 13th anniversary post, and it holds true now. I suspected that I would be back in the office in the fall and that things might pick up then, but guess what? I still work from home! There is talk about maybe spending a day or two in the office every week, but with what I do, it's not critical for me to be in an office. In fact, I'm technically more efficient because I don't lose two hours a day on commuting. Why bring me back when they can leave me at home and get more work out of me? 


State of the chest freezer: Too full! It's kind of a mess and I'm not sure what I've done wrong here.... well, besides the obvious of buying things randomly and not storing them properly. Whenever I make some progress, I'll run in to new stuff at the store and just pack the freezer up again. Sometimes I also buy older stuff when I can't find new stuff, but then I find new stuff the next time and the old stuff just lingers.

What's in this one: If it doesn't look too bad, keep in mind that these ice creams are layered two deep and you can't see a lot of them (like there are a bunch of Ben & Jerry's pints in there). What's headed to blog? 3 Turkey Hill Sundae cups on the left there. Another pint of Milk bar ice cream. The other two Noose flavors (one hiding under that mint chipwich in the top left corner). Two more pints from Van Leeuwen to cover (plus I need to finish the official Van Leeuwen ice cream bars post). I thought I'd pop out my first Hood review in two years with those strawberry ice cream bars... oh geez, if you look real close at the bottom, you will see a blue bunny box buried under everything. There's a bag of Ben & Jerry's sugar cookie dough for cookie dough munching emergencies.

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Am I still ice cream hunting? Hunting seems a bit strong, but I have been a little more adventurous in 2022 (compared to 2021). Nothing great, but enough to at least keep a better eye on the state of the ice cream industry... or should I call it the frozen dairy dessert industry? It really is sad that mainstream ice cream is dead. It's now mainstream frozen dairy dessert. You need to step up to premium ice cream to be reminded of the days of old. 

Non-dairy is doing well which I think is a good thing, and it really is everywhere at this point. KLIMON is a almond based product that launched exclusively at Walmart. Think about that. In 2008, would you think you would read a press release like that? (There are five flavors in all if you are curious... also, their logo is creepy now that I look at it more closely).

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Even now, I'm constantly getting distracted and doing other things while trying to prep this post. In the blog's heyday, I would work on it almost every night. If I wasn't working on my own posts, I would be prepping one of Nick's. That's back when we had 20k visitors a month and 250-300 posts a year. Crazy times!

Do I still love ice cream? Ofcourse I do! Do I wish there was more diversity available in the freezer aisle? Yes. Stores carry more brands nowadays, but they tend to all carry the same stuff. I'd rather have each store carry 4 brands but go deep in to the lineup rather than a store carry 8 brands with the same few flavors.

I'm stopping for a moment to thank everyone for continuing to comment on posts. I do still pre-read them before posting just to make sure I keep out the spammers. Keep on commenting! I don't think I was very good at encouraging it back in the old days but nowadays it's important to keep the civil discourse rolling (hint: I say civil because being rude often gets your comment deleted, especially if the anger is directed towards another commenter).

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Final thoughts? Keep on scooping! Also, make time for fun stuff too. Me? I've spent the last 14 months drawing a little blue dino. You can check him out at @BobtheBlueDino. That's what I'm usually doing at night instead of working on the blog. I've loved drawing since I was a little kid but this is the first time I've ever made a concerted effort to stick with a subject and draw every day.

Alright, I should probably go. Feel free to leave a comment on whatever you want. Maybe a cool new flavor you tried or want to try, comment on if your ice cream habits have changed recently or over the last 14 years, stuff like that. Mosts importantly, be well everyone!

6 comments:

  1. Remember Milky Way Milkshakes? I used to love those. I know Klondike has frozen...pouches, but I can't very excited about trying them. Love your posts!

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  2. I've been following you since the beginning and I'll continue until your final scoop. I've def been eating less ice cream bc of the FDD abundance. I only buy HD when it's on sale, and I'm really into Hudsonville full size containers. Their pb cup replaced my love of the TH one bc now TH doesn't taste the same, even when it's ice cream and not FDD. I just tried their strawberry cheesecake and the tart strawberry is nice, although the cheesecake flavor is light. The texture tastes and scoops like ice cream which is something I miss dearly. I used to love Giffords until my Shoprite got rid of it.

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  3. how do you decide what goes in which freezer?

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  4. Good stuff. The freezer section is pretty miss these days between supply chain issues, non-ice cream (Halo Top) and lack of creativity by some of the traditional brands. I splurge on mail order here and there and catch new products on sale when they pop-up.

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  5. I would not have believed I'd read that in 2008. Heck, I wouldn't believe I'd even care back then. Now, different person with different values, and I love to see the non-dairy is going strong.

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  6. FYI the freezer is fixed as of last monday morning (it was a clogged drain line)

    and as for what goes where, basically everything gets to the upstairs freezer via the downstairs chest freezer. The downstairs one allows me to stock up and then try new things as the mood strikes.

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