Our New Favorite.

So we were at the latest Night Market last night in South Philly. Best crowd yet! Tons of fun as always. And we met Alex, the awesome lil guy in the picture. He's our new favorite, and his new favorite is our Madagascar Bourbon Vanila gelato. Next Night Market should be in Mount Airy, last Thursday in July. You gonna come out? We'll be there!

Meet Sarah Reyes

Sarah is our newest barista here at 20th Street. She is very pleasant and wonderful to work with. Sarah is the younger sister of our wholesale queen, Amanda, and equally as awesome. I'm pretty sure that they both were born in a land of rainbows and grew up riding winged unicorns. I learned a fun fact about Sarah today, that she used to be a professional bar mitzvah dancer. Apparently she and her sister were hired to liven up parties. I can see why they would be ringers for such soirees, Sarah definitely makes our customers smile with her charm and positive vibe. Welcome aboard! Feel free to come down and heckle her at any time. She may even show you how to do the electric slide. Mazel!

BBQ time!!

It really feels like summer now, I suppose it has for a little while but this weekend we picked up a grill for my house and nothing says summer like BBQ.  You know you don't want to cook anything in the house when you have the A/C cranked up trying to fight the heat in an upper floor apartment in the city.  Since the rain on Friday the weather has been amazing and it's perfect for firing up a charcoal grill (sorry Hank but I have to disagree with you about the propane) and making burgers, sausage, and kebabs.  And of course having a whole pint of lemon opal basil sorbetti all to myself.  Just like the rest of the year my favorite thing about summer revolves around the foods of the season.  I'm sure others will agree with me.




I have to agree with bobby about the smokey flavor.

They eat brains, don't they?

All this talk of a zombie apocalypse - phooey!

But it's raining again in south Philly and now I'm not so sure...

Yes, we know, it's hot. Why not make a homemade Slip 'n Slide?

Step 1: Find a decent hill that doesn't end with a highway or a brick wall.

Step 2: Get a bunch of big black trash bags and/or tarps, and duct tape them together until you have the desired length of slide. Position on hillside.

Step 3: Pour soapy water down the slide to get it all sudsy. Baby oil works better but is harder to clean.

Step 4: Drink copious amounts of alcohol. This helps get rid of the self-awareness that you might actually get hurt.

Step 5: Launch yourself hurdling down the slide at high speeds, hope to avoid concussion.

The heat is on it's way

I hope everyone is prepared to sweat it out in the heat or hide in their comfy A/C because the rest of this week is supposed to be crazy hot.

Don't forget the rules of the heat.

Stock up on pints of your favorite sorbetti and gelato (come early and beat the crazy lines....they will be crazy.
Don't forget to carry lots of water AND drink it. 
Make sure your pets have lots of water to drink and some circulating air to keep them cool when you leave them alone. 
Don't leave your pets or small children in the car in the heat.   Seriously.  (ಠ_ಠ )
If you see a sprinkler on then you are obligated to run through it like you are twelve and enjoy it.

Take a walk on the wild side ; )

Hey, I'm not complaining. Really though, he's on absolutely every station we put on (Pavement, Talking Heads, The Replacements, Madonna??).. it's getting pretty eerie.

Waste of a good berry.

Clearly the archetypal delivery method for blueberries has to be the muffin, right? Lame. Lame! All that those berries are accomplishing is helping you rationalize what is otherwise an enormous engorgement of sugar and butter. Are you one of those people that has a muffin-a-day habit? Please tell me you're not combining it with some frappa-caramel-latte-ccino-mocha-with-sugar-free-syrup-and-half-a-packet-of-Equal-but-make-it-with-skim-milk-so-I-can-have-whipped-cream-too nonsense. I think WAY too highly of you to accept that as truth. Seriously.

Because good blueberries are so fleeting! They just showed up in our stores, and I canNOT express to you how excited we are. I mean, yeah--we definitely get giddy about blood oranges in the winter. And of course strawberries. But those seem kind of predictable, don't you think? Maybe I'm just being cynical--and don't get me wrong, I do love me some strawberry sorbetto--but blueberries are so easily co-opted and processed and finagled into shelf-stable jellies and freezer-ready slurries and pie filling...this is me getting on my "eat what's in season!" high horse again. (What's the difference between blueberry jelly and pie filling anyway?!)

And honestly, Blueberry+Bluecoat sorbetto? Just so good. So good! Blueberries and gin! Weird that I like it so much, given that I'll need you to remember when you're making my martini that I want it as dry and dirty as a Jersey shore back bay that even the crabs won't hang out in.

So listen, quit munging up a perfectly awesome blueberry by swathing it in all kinds of carbohydrates and fats and shenanigans that are just going to make you feel guilty. You don't have to feel guilty about your blueberry fixation! Now's the time for blueberry gelato, but it won't be around forever. Gotta make room for the raspberries! (not a song about blueberries at all)

Dads are insufferably hard to shop for.

I know I wasn't the best daughter (see my Mother's Day post), but I've always had a soft spot for my dear old Dad. I tried, and failed, every year to buy him gifts that he would use, or at least appreciate. It took me about twelve years to notice that my father never wore the ties or cologne that I bought for him at the local gas station, so I started buying gigantic bags of pistachios instead. We bought him pound after pound of pistachios.This was all well and good until my father had to be hospitalized for a severe allergic reaction to pistachios, and my brother and I were once more at a loss for what to get him. We tried the gift certificate route, but somehow showing our love through Bloomin' Onions at the Outback Steakhouse somehow lacked that emotional integrity we were aiming for. It took several Father's Days, birthdays, and Christmases to realize that there actually was in fact, nothing that we could get our dad that would equate to a good gift.

Which brings me to my point. Don't get your dad anything; take something from his past and make it cool again.  My favorite leather jacket was something that I stole from my dad. It's this sweet burnt orange motorcycle jacket from the 70's, and it was just gathering dust in his closet. I now wear it all the time. He got a great chuckle when I unearthed it from the closet and said how rad it was. Dad's were the original hipsters after all. My first pair of tinted aviator sunglasses were also something that I "liberated" from my father. When I asked if I could have them, he laughed and said sure, amused that what once was cool to him had come full circle to my generation.By taking vintage things away from your father, you are giving his life validity and a sense of hipness that he probably did not get to experience enough in his youth. There, aren't you a good daughter?!

You could also buy him gelato. Just no pistachio, please.

Father's Day is coming!

Father's Day is coming up this weekend and what better way to tell your dear old Dad you love him than taking him out for a tasty, frozen treat.  Better yet get him a few pints of his favorite flavors, surprise him, and he can enjoy them for the few days they will last him (my Dad was an avid midnight-snacker so treats disappeared rather quickly and without a trace).

We have finally seen some blueberries at 13th and they are more delicious than I remember.  Whether you like them in sorbetto or gelato they are always good and will absolutely leave a smile on you and your pops faces.  I also saw some Lychee come off the truck today and whether you are familiar with the strange leathery, reddish, lizard skinned fruit with the sweet, tender, white flesh inside you should come by and try it this week. (I hope that wasn't too many adjectives, I feel like my high school English teacher might scold me for that sentence.)

Lychee

Happy Fathers Day to all the Dad's out there!!