As the mercury rises, the Parsnipity family begins our peregrinations of the various local ice cream options. We live in a blessed locale with easy access to Honeycomb Creamery, Gerley’s (nee Tipping Cow), Forge, New City Microcreamery, Christina’s, Toscanini’s and then as a second tier, JP Licks and Ben and Jerry’s. Truly an embarrassment of riches.
Every so often, I stray from my usual partiality to all things chocolate when something truly interesting flavorwise presents itself. Last week, a new seasonal flavor at Honeycomb blew my mind. Onions, my new favorite ice cream is goat cheese basil! Creamy, vegetal, tangy. I can’t wait to eat more of it. It’s smooth, and although not a visible shade of green, the basil is delightfully present.
As another entry in this category, I present to you Gerly’s fig and goat cheese. This one is chunky, with chunks of both dried fig and goat cheese.
If you’re up for a drive, Holy Cow (in a few different North Shore locations) always has an assortment of interesting and excellent flavors. Not quite as out there as goat cheese basil, I’m afraid!
Not local, but my favorite is Jeni’s Goat cheese with red cherries.
We tried Jamie’s on Kirkland St. near Dali/Wine and Cheese Cask the other day. I wanted the Strawberry Limeade sorbet, but it wasn’t frozen yet. I got the Melon Sherbet instead and it was delicious. Cherry Pie is what I’ll get next time.
i was at jamie’s a few weeks ago, specifically for the cherry pie. it wasn’t;t on the menu and the server didn’t know anything about it. had the chocolate, which while good, was nothing special.
curious to know about the cherry pie, though. what did they say when you asked? if you did get to try it, please report back.
I know, right? And these are just locations we can walk or bike to. Speaking of, I wish Trina’s still had that soft serve window that they opened during COVID. That’s a really nice bike lane trip and it always seemed busy when we went there. If I could find fault in our offerings, it is the lack of soft serve. Also, anyone who has followed the Davis Square goings-on for some time will remember the back and forth about how there used to be 3 fro-yo shops, which was clearly too many, and now there are none, which is clearly too few. So we’re a little light on fro-yo, although the one remaining Berryline is just on the other side of Harvard and I find their offerings excellent.
I didn’t ask that first time about cherry pie. I wanted the strawberry limeade sorbet, which was on the online menu, and also on the menu at the register. There were three people working there I could see, and the two I interacted with seemed kind of clueless.
I was allowed to order and pay for that sorbet, because the person working the register apparently wasn’t told it wasn’t available. That seems kind of strange, not to ensure the person running the register knows what is not available. Then I asked for the melon sherbet that was handwritten as a special at the register as a substitute. The register person had to go ask if it was available and it took almost 5 minutes to find out it was.
Then because it was so hot and we were driving home with it, I asked for tops to put on the small sized cups. Person said, of course and went to get tops, came back with parchment paper and rubber bands!
This is reminding me that we love the maple soft serve at Momma’s Grocery, near Pemberton Farm in North Cambridge. I don’t love maple desserts because they are usually too sweet. This isn’t!
Also Vinal General Store in Somerville, Somerville Ave. has soft serve. It’s okay, but not nearly as good as Momma’s. Finally, I read in Cambridge Day that Hourly Oyster in Harvard Square acquired a soft serve machine and is using it both for dessert and for boozy cocktails. Must try!
At Gracie’s, I’ve only tried the Prosecco orange sorbet…loved it, but not often available.
Rancatore’s in both Belmont and Lexington are worth a mention. Also, Van Leeuwen in Harvard Sq is now open (haven’t been…).
Lastly, has anyone sampled Natural Fruttiberri on Mt. Auburn in Watertown? Owners are Persian with some very unusual ice cream flavors (saffron rose, cardamon, pomegranate, pistachio tahini, etc) along with a range of frozen yogurts
I LOVE Jeni’s! I wonder what we need to do to get them into Boston. It’s not enough visiting their shops when we travel. Fortunately DH is from Columbus so I’m guaranteed at least once per year visits… last time I had a tahini-chocolate oatmeal cookie flavor that was amazing.
I’m a fan of the Cocoa Joel at Ranc’s, but I gotta say the owner is not the brightest bulb. He explained to me that once ice cream freezes it can’t get any colder. He makes great ice cream, though.