i scream...

We are very lucky in Northern California. For too myriad a reason to list here, but today in particular, because the weather was exceptional for an easy day adventure. A little scared to get in the blue car and leave the city on the day when everyone would be returning, we took our chances and ventured out at 1pm.

Only one thing was on my agenda, the rest was up to  whim and chance. Ice cream. Not just any ice cream, but the cold creamy stuff made with local organic ingredients. A waiter I used to work with was from a tiny town in Marin County and jotted down this place's name on a table check slip. Today, over one year later, I pulled it out and went looking for exact location and phone number on Google. Nothing.

Fairfax Scoop is a tiny slip of a thing on Broadway, ( 63 Broadway, Fairfax. 415 453. 3130) under the canopy of young tree. It's very Californian in style, meaning that much of the signage is hand-painted, and there's a large amount of self-explanatory text on the walls inside to explain the experience you are having there. A little sign tells you the utensils are biodegradable. A sign on the top of the garbage can warns you against throwing away things that are not, in fact, garbage. A happy, long poster tells you cheerily what a "community business is." And there is a very thorough explanation about why you may not see "your favorite flavour" at  Fairfax Scoop, (They operate Organically, and not all flavours, like alcohol and candy cane for example, are thus.) Underneath this is a little Alice-In-Wonderland type shelf with a bowl of recycled scrap paper, a pencil and a tiny treasure chest where you may place a request for ice cream flavor ideas.

At Fairfax Scoop they keep 4 flavors as constants: chocolate, strawberry {above photo}, vanilla and honey-lavendar-vanilla {just to the left photo.} After tasting Mexican chocolate, brown sugar pecan and something I cannot seem to remember, I chose a cone with strawberry. They make all of their cones and although it is a decidedly wonderful candy-factory smell, J. & I decided it was too thick and clunky, especially by the end of the ice cream cone. It got in the way of the wonderful texture and subtle dairy flavours.

When we were there it was constantly busy and really fun to sit and watch all the children come and go. There are heavy mosaic tables and matching chairs in the small space and the cute small people additions were a rainbow plastic bench for children to wait and a long bench for them to stand on in front of the i.c. case so that they could peer down into the case as well. A children's cone is $1.50 and two flavours is $2.35.

Although I tried three of their non-constants I was most pleased with the strawberry. So I got back in line and got "for here" chocolate and strawberry together. It came in a nifty metal bowl that felt good to hold. I like that the strawberry is a little icy. It means that they are making a coulis and adding it to a base which I appreciate as an ice cream maker myself. And the chocolate was strong, not too sweet, and really hit the spot.

A mark of home-made ice cream is that many flavours will display many textures.

Which brings me to Sketch. Also made with local dairy, Strauss Organic milk to be exact, Sketch provides a completely different flavour, texture and graphic profile. Located on the very posh 4th Street in Berkeley, Sketch is sandwiched between one of the most expensive and eclectic women's clothing store in the area and one of the oldest and most well known bakeries.

The ice cream is not your standard recipe. There are no egg yolks, no cream and no emulsions. Just fantastically  fresh infusions, a few incredible take-away desserts, seasonal sorbets & granitas whose color and pungency might knock your socks off.

They have a policy where they offer tastes for two new flavours only, and have a few rotating constants. Although one of the owners, Eric, explained this new system to me, it did not work out so well with my mother, an outspokenly loyal customer since their beginnings a year ago. She wanted to taste something new and was told that only the marked new ones could be sampled. So she took a chance and ordered the coffee granita but handed it back after one spoonful. In the end she got a raspberry granita and I ate one of the new ice creams: arroz con leche.

I have a thing for the concept of rice ice cream. The best rendition I have had of this odd concoction is the one at B44 in Belden Alley. Sketch's was light on the cinnamon which was pleasant but the raspberry granita was so barely sweetened that it was difficult, if you can imagine, to get through an entire scoop. (too intensely acidic.)

The owners of Sketch, Eric and Ruthie have a missive on one of the glass doors explaining what ice cream means and represents to them. Their graphic designer, Ruthie's sister, did an amazing job with how the space looks and feels. It's filled with soft buttery light, hand selected antique ice cream wares are spaced nicely on floating shelves, and new to the space are chalk drawings of a jar of milk, a dozen eggs and others in that realm.

In front of Sketch is an old frozen desserts cart circa 1920. Amazingly it is not just a prop, but a working object. I had the good fortune to be at an event where they came with it and handed out tiny scoops of their frozen ice cream all day.

What I love about where I live is that within a half hour I can access the most expansive grand nature, sit near a roaring sea, walk through a small quiet town, and eat ice creams that are re-defining themselves, therefore surprising, delighting and educating me and countless others.

Comments

[Kudzu]

Shuna --
Glad you had some time in Marin. Your ice cream story caught me up short at the spot where you describe the sensation of holding the "metal bowl" at Fairfax Scoop.
Somehow eating i.c. from metal serving pieces intensifies the experience by keeping the contents cold and that cool hand feeling intensifies it too. I have strong sense memories of footed metal ice cream dishes on smooth marble counters and tables in Southern "drugstores" and the tall shake cannisters beaded on the outside with icy condensation. Keep thinking I'll get some of those colored metallic dessert dishes from Sur La Table, but they can't possibly beat the plain old fashioned kind.

[shuna]

Kudzu,

Wow, thank you for making such a beautiful comment on a tiny detail! But I understand, it's why I photographed them as well, because I thought that it was a finesse that Fairfax Scoop chose to have those as their "for here" containers.

[Amy]

The most fantastic version of ice cream I ever had was in Sicily. The gelato there is softer than in the rest of Italy and more intensly flavored (and yes, I had the "good stuff" in Rome and Florence but really, it was better in Sicily)

I found the gelato at Sketch to be very similar in style and flavor to the Sicilian, (though outrageously expensive) do you know anything about how that softer texture is achieved?

[shuna]

Amy,

The texture question is a difficult one. For one, it is the perfect temperature of an ice cream freshly churned. I heard once that gelato in Italy is churned by a singular source that comes with a truck to pick up the shop's melted stuff. This could be just one area as Michael Recchiuti told me this story about his family.

Also in Saveur they did a whole issue on gelato and the recipes had cornstarch in them. But I think that this is not exactly the case as I could not get a single one of those recipes to work at Citizen Cake...

I imagine that a big part of the different textures in dairy desserts in Europe has much to do with different cows and very high butterfat content in the milks and creams. The "terroir" one might say. Which I agree with, after spending some time in Ireland where the milk from my uncle's cows is thick and creamy.

What Americans want and force from our cows is very different than what most small European countries do.

[Fatemeh]

Wow, Shuna... as always, another beautiful and evocative post!

I adore ice cream. Really. And I keep telling myself that this summer, I'll buy the ice cream maker. Then, each summer rolls around and I try to lose the pounds I've packed on in the winter.

But, you've inspired me, and I just ordered my very first Ice Cream maker!

[john]

The reference to eating ice cream in "drugstores" reminds me that I've wondered, off and on, how a particular (now almost vanished) combination of functions came to be: you went to the "drugstore" to get medicine (including having prescriptions filled by a licensed pharmacist), buy postage stamps, and order sundaes and sodas and milk shakes. And when I was a kid, this was so ordinary that it never occcurred to me to ask the obvious question: WHY?

[haddock]

Kudzu:

I've got plenty little ice cream dishes, I'll give you some once you're squared away.

Shuna;
Glad to see you got out of town. I also see you're venturing to Santa Rosa soon. Have a wonderful class.

[shuna]

Fatemeh,

Excellent!! ice cream makers everywhere, that's what I say! My dad and stepmom used to make vanilla ic sometimes and we would all take turns with the crank. Hard work in a tiny NYC studio in the summer, but worth it! Maybe that will be our next class together....

John,

I think that it started with "the country store" that sold everything. And somehow it started with Woolworth's too. I remember going there for egg salad sandwiches and malted's. (My grandmother thought that she could fatten me up with them. Alas I love malteds but remmain a lanky fellow.)

Haddock,

The class will be fun, indeed. A little messy too with all those berries...

Yeah, Woolworth's... there are still a few people who reminisce about the lunch counter at the big Powell & Market Woolworth's here in SF. (I'm not one of them--I recall grilled cheese sandwiches that were like hot, greasy linoleum tile.)

I'm not sure "selling everything" explains why drugstores specifically had medicines (prescription and over the counter), stamps, and soda fountains. I'm working on a hypothesis about refrigeration and official licensing but it's all pure speculation so far.