Superlative Ice Cream
Whoever it was that posted about the ice cream now
offered by the Egg Farm Diary: thank you, thank you and
thank you. That finally got me to pay them a visit and
it was wonderful. We tasted a bunch of cheeses and
selected 3 for our picnic before Shakespeare at
Boscobel last Sat. Then we got started on the ice
cream. The only disappointment was that they were out
of pink grapefruit sorbet - it was incredibly
grapefruity - all the best parts of a good, sweet (but
not overly) grapefruit. We wound up getting 4 pints
for 9 people and it was probably the most fun of all
the stuff at the picnic - everyone got into the tasting
act! The buckwheat honey is creamy and good, but has a
wonderfully pronounced honey flavor. The ginger had
just enough bite to it. The strawberry-rhubarb sorbet
was the most liquidy of all, but everyone drank it with
relish, and the deep chocolate did indeed have a deep,
rich flavor and that feeling on your tongue that only a
good Dutch-process cocoa can give. We will all go
back to try more flavors.
-
Looking forward to trying the Egg Farm Dairy, but in
the meantime just across the border in Connecticut
is Dr. Mike's, in Bethel just south of Danbury. I
heard about it because Chocolatier magazine rated it
one of the top ten ice cream places in the country.
It definitely earned that in my book! They lovingly
make their own batches of the most wonderful flavors,
and have positively mastered the art of intense flavor
without being too sweet. Their signature flavor is
Chocolate Lace, a sweet cream base with just the right
amount of "bits" in it. Also sensational were a
cashew caramel, apple pie, pumpkin, and many berry
flavors.
They also have a branch in Monroe, which is just as
good. Both are tiny little rooms at the back of larger
buildings and would be hard to find were it not for the
lines pouring out the door and into the packed parking
lot. -
Wow! Small world. Gee, Jim, I probably did see you,
but wouldn't have recognized you without your hat and
Groucho glasses... you would, of course, have been
most welcome to join our ice cream tasting - though
I'm surprised you didn't hear us oohing and aahing out
on the grass. What a beautiful place that is - I'd
never been there before, but will certainly go again.
Yes, Abigail, we very much enjoyed the performance - I
roared at the post-intermission number. I have never
seen Shakespeare so creatively performed - loved the
variety of accents - I thought the Brooklynese worked
particularly well (maybe I'm a wee bit biased...). -
I, too, was at the Shakespeare Festival's opening of Twelth Night on Saturday (in fact, I was an usher...you probably saw me)! Pretty funny...any other chowhounds out there in attendance?
Anyway, while I regrettably missed the ice cream, I can report that I hit the nearby 84 Diner, near Rt. 84 in Fishkill, for a meal and deeply regretted having done so. Sure is hard to eat well up there (unless you can wrangle a reservation at Xavier's)...maybe you were right to just do a straight dairy binge.
Oh, and the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival is an awesome thing, on the beautiful sloping lawn of the Boscobel Mansion (with view across and down the Hudson to West Point). Great actors, they make Shakespeare fun and accessible without diluting it in the least.
Tried to catch the recreated Da Vinci horse the next day before they shipped it to Milan, but couldn't penetrate the crowds...
Ciao, thou -
Hi!
I, too, am an ice cream fanatic (gonna check out Egg Farm Dairy soon!), but am also director of marketing with the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, which you attended in your post ice cream reverie. I hope the show at least came CLOSE to the ice cream quality for you!
Abigail -
