Kelly’s Ice Cream Shop!
You only need to know two words.
Caramel Almond.
Ice Cream Madness Continues!
Still high on a flavor-intensive sampling of handmade, all-organic chocolate ice cream from Mission Hill Creamery, I need to figure out how I’m going to live until my next visit to the five-week old ice cream mecca. Scooped up by chef/owner David Kumec himself, the samples absolutely knocked me out. I was treated to a strawberry ice cream with actual, deep summer ripe strawberry flavor. Then something tart and nostalgic called Orange Creamcicle (tastes just like it sounds!).
Next came the chocolate, loaded with artisanal chocolate bits amidst its sinfully dark chocolate creaminess. Yes, everything is organic! But somehow Kumec had saved the best taste for last. Pistachio. Pistachio the way it must have tasted in the Garden of Eden. Deeply earthily nutty, and yet like butter in its texture. I literally groaned right there in front of his fully-loaded ice cream display.
The flavors change daily (more…)
La Posta: the On-going Conquest
The pizza crust was parchment-thin and addictively delicious. The handmade salume assortment might have brought any Genovese to his knees. And the delicate cannelloni, slathered with roasted heirloom tomatoes and filled with ricotta. Oh!
La Posta, on Tuesdays, when the fiercely romantic melodies of Italian folktunes by Emily and Paul Rangell make you want to never go home, is by now enshrined in the hearts of local diners who acknowledge the economy, but still refuse to compromise.
Catherine Stern’s kitchen continues to conquer.
We four began with a shared pizza (more…)
Cool, Creamy and Made by Hand
The Penny Ice Creamery opens today! And for devotées of the very finest, organic, artesanal ice cream that is a very good thing. (The tempting image, left, is by photographer Molly Watson.)
(I stopped by and inhaled a cup of Brown Butter Pecan ice cream lavish with eggs, butter and cream.)
Housed at 913 Cedar Street in the handsomely renovated Mission Revival suite across from Gabriella (former doctor’s offices as many locals might recall), The Penny Ice Creamery is a new entrepreneurial venture from former Manresa pastry chef Kendra Baker and partner Zachary Davis. The two bring backgrounds deep in environmental business and finance (Davis’ UCSC background and subsequent MBA), as well as international culinary training in Wales, France, Boston and San Francisco.
Merging their skills and interests, the two arrived logically enough at the concept of small batch, local, seasonal and yes, organic ice creams, complete with designer flavors and toppings. And coffee drinks featuring fresh-roasted Verve coffees.
Open from noon daily (except for Monday) the Penny Ice Creamery is about to become your new warm weather hangout. Rush over and welcome them to the downtown community of places to pamper your palate.
The Penny Ice Creamery – 913 Cedar Street – 831/204-2523.
Stop force-feeding us losers!!!
A plea to cable TV talk hosts! Just stop it!
I have had to assume for the past year that the incessant updates on CNN and FOX news about the lifestyle status of Lindsay Lohan is purely comic relief. After all what with a tanking economy, horrific Mexican mafia revelations, Afghani human rights abuses, our government’s interminable vacations, and the BP oil disaster, there is much we need to escape. But Lindsay Lohan? A non-talent nobody with a drug problem? Please! It’s no longer high irony to track this poor human being’s wasted efforts at getting her father’s attention via drugs, pornographic photo shoots, public weeping and rapid reversals of hair color.
Enough. Just stop it!
And while you’re at it, CNN, FOX, People Magazine, et al., please stop returning the phone calls, text messages and emails of Jennifer Aniston’s publicist. No one cares about the surgically-altered former Mrs. Pitt. (more…)
Inside the Flame
A book of sensory adventure: The rituals, passions and discoveries of an engaged life.