We don’t make shark ice cream or chicken dinner ice cream or any of the inane flavors an unimaginative ice cream store can create. Even our most unusual flavors come from somewhere else. Guinness is a flavor that irish people find to be silly or offensive but folks from Trinidad eat Guinness pie and Guinness ice cream. A lot of Bostonians are “from the islands.” In addition to Guinness they buy Grape Nut and Grape Nut Raisin. When the store first opened I would roam the aisles of our local market looking for things that might be good in ice cream. Many cookies are at least okay in ice cream but most cereals turn to mush. Not Grape Nuts which are indestructible. I was happy with the flavor’s crunch and nutty taste when I noticed that we were selling a lot of it to cab drivers who came across the river from Boston. One customer told me that Jamaica’s biggest ice cream store puts grape nuts into the ice cream. A ha. And later I learned that Grape Nut ice cream was also favored by older people from northern New England and Canada’s maritime provinces. These people also liked Grape Nut pudding. Who knew?

Burnt Caramel was an accident when we were trying to make caramel ice cream and were insufficiently attentive. Bruce Frankel, the famous chef, and then a neighbor came by the store to borrow a half gallon of heavy cream. “Just call it Burnt Caramel and sell it,” he said. The ice cream makers looked quizzical. “Really, its very popular in parts of Spain.” And for many years it has been one of our most popular flavors.

Despite the economy we were busy this year and particularly so when summer finally arrived in August. It was also a time of surprising creativity here in Central Square, Cambridge.

Chad Coffin made a Bourbon ice cream and added Vienna Finger Cookies. These vanilla cookies with vanilla filling taste wonderful in bourbon ice cream.

Ana Sortun runs a wonderful cafe on the Cambridge-Belmont border, with food from all over the Mediterranean, especially the Turkish-Greek eastern region. At her cafe, after a long bike ride, I had a perfect Strawberry Pink Peppercorn Sharbatt which we turned into a fine sorbet. New prdouction chief Kevin Rafferty finalized the recipe. Like many great recipes it is familiar but different. Strrawberry Sorbet is common, but the pink peppercorns impart a special sensation.

One day we rummaged through old recipes and found two that we finally brought into focus. The Lemon ice cream was first made for Michael Levitan’s Lumiere restaurant in Newton, from a recipe provided by the chef-owner . Andy Burri took time out from his musical passions to perfect the recipe. My father is a self-proclaimed expert on lemons and he loves the flavor.

Nougat is made from honey, egg whites and nuts. After I had made a disastorous attempt to make the flavor, one in which I may have incorrectly performed every step of the recipe, Kevin Rafferty made a perfect version. The flavor had been requested by a customer for a very sick friend.

Alex Castagneto is no longer the chef at Boston’s Estragon , a year-old Spanish restaurant near the BU Medical Center in Boston’s South End, but he came up with the idea for a Chocolate Spanish Chili flavor, provided us with smoked Spanish chiles and worked with us on an ice cream that is altogether surprising.

I used to worry about running out of ideas but here we are also working on flavors from an Indian dessert cookbook and a list of new flavors for the Spanish restaurant. The road goes on forever.

Every year, for 25 years, two of our customers celebrate a birthday by getting a Ginger Snap Molasses ice cream cake. One year the cake was not finished. It was not frosted and didn’t have a birthday message. Because of a childhood tradition the wife’s birthday cakes always said “Day of Days” in reference to a child’s book. The next year the husband decided to live dangerously and not open the box until they were ready to cut the cake. When the husband and wife opened the most recent cake box the message was “Day of Dogs.” They simply laughed. And laughed again when retelling the story.

MIT and Harvard students are running about. Some of them are badly driving uHaul trucks that are too big. We must be patient with them. Every year Wellesley has a scavenger hunt for incoming students and we are usually included in the hunt. We’re nice to them.

Kevin Rafferty made Miso ice cream. It is good, tasting like caramel and a little salty. It is not an unheard of flavor. You might get it at expensive restaurants in hip big city neighborhoods. Miso is derived from wheat and is not for folks who avoid gluten.

On Fri Aug 28 09 we are doing something clever with the Clover Food Lab Truck. Nothing will happen here at 899 Main St. but some of our customers may ask about it. The Clover Food Lab Truck is a good and clever project that parks near the Kendall Sq. T Station, by MIT’s Whittaker Health Center. They serve wonderful vegetarian and vegan food. The chef worked at the famous French Laundry in California and teaches at Johnson and Wales in RI. Owner Ayr Muir graduated as a materials scientist from MIT. Anyway, as an end of the week special they will be selling small one-scoop portions of Strawberry Pink Peppercorn Sorbet and Sweet Cream. Strawberry Pink Peppercorn is one of our newest flavors, and plainly inspired by a summer drink from Sofra cafe on Belmont St. Sweet Cream is one of our oldest flavors and the simplest flavor we make. It is simply frozen cream. Pink peppercorns are not peppers and they come from South America.

Since Mimi and Adam went on sabbatical I suspect that most of our neighbors have been happily eating leftover pizza. I once read a trade journal about pizza that claimed that leftover pizza was America’s Fourth Favorite Breakfast Food. I suspect that ESPN watchers and other young men living without women skewed the sample. Where is the National Opinion Research Center when you need them?

Anyway this Saturday we’ll again open at 8AM and start serving the hot stuff at 10AM until 2PM.

Here is the menu and please note that we’re still favoring the hungry over the intellectually busy. No computers or studying when other people need to sit.

The Royal Canadian Bacon Sliders have been displaced by Upper West Sliders, made with house-cured salmon.

The Raj is a new item cooked with naan and two English cheddar cheeses, plus the famous tomato jam from past menus.

We cook everything to order and deliver the food as it is ready.

Buttermilk Pancakes, maple syrup, whipped butter 8.25

Upper West Sliders: scramble eggs, house-cured salmon, heirloom tomato, wasabi aioli, scallions
on plain brioche rolls 6.75

Stuffed Brioche French Toast with strawberry cream cheese and VT maple syrup 6.75

Creamy Egg Sandwich on toasted ciabatta 5.75
add bacon 2.00

Fried Egg Sandwich with arugula, Sriracha whipped feta, red onion 5.75
add bacon 2.00

The Raj: two-cheddar cheese “omelet” on naan, spicy tomato jam 8.25

Grilled blueberry muffin with whipped butter 2.95

Side o’bacon 3.00
Side o’lamb sausage 3.75
Side o’potatoes w/onions 4.25
Sophie’s of Belmont Greek yogurt with honey and granola 3.25
French Press Coffee from George Howell and Batdorf & Bronson 3.75

We were busy with publicity. Gus did an interview on Martha Stewart radio, the Boston Globe said kind things about us and so did Boston Magazine. We won their Best Ice Cream category for Best of Boston. Gourmet.com had a feature about Boston ice cream stores that included both Toscanini’s and Rancatore’s, run by our brother Joseph. Our father, Joseph, was altogether happy.

This Saturday in Union Square, Somerville we will participate in the Ice Cream Smackdown. This will not involve ultimate fighting or any member of the Gracie Family.

So instead, just head to Somerville on Saturday. EatBoston and Sugarbomber.com have put together an ice-cream smackdown at which local ice-cream makers will compete to see who has the best relief for the heat. The $2 suggested donation goes to a scholarship fund for an area high-school musician. It’s 3-6 p.m. in the Family Center parking lot next to Grand, 374 Somerville Ave. in Somerville. More info

We have two weddings requiring special flavors. For a Greek wedding we are making Cucumber Sorbet, one of our best flavors and usually sold as Spring Sorbet. For a great big wedding on Saturday we are making Macadamia Nut Brittle and Banana Walnut. We may not have any to sell at the store but if you’re invited to either wedding it will be there.

For Labor Day Weekend, Gus may be in Chicago for the Chicago Ice Cream Festival. More details to follow but there will be time for new and old architecture, deep dish pizza, Chciago hot dogs, and super restaurants.

The vigilant among us may have noticed signs of the impending student deluge. The earliest arrivals come to find apartments, get jobs, and spruce up fraternities and dorms. Then the foreign students, and the athletes, and then there are no more parking spaces.

The great George Howell supplies us with light roasted coffees. Howell started the fabled Coffee Connection, and has done many things to improve coffee and the situations of coffee growers. We are selling a changing selection of George’s special coffees.

Everyone should go to Adam Tessier’s special website: www.ourdailysonnet.com

Every day a different person reads a different sonnet by Shakespeare.