One of our all-time favorite customers is Jerry Wolper, despite the fact that he is an investor in Rancatore’s ice cream out in Belmont and Lexington. After attending MIT and working in the early days of
the interactive game business Jery returned to his beloved Pittsburgh. Many rumors focused on his love of the Penguin ice hockey franchise. Jerry sent us news that China Millman had written a comprehensive
piece about ice cream stores in Cambridge.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09333/1016467-34.stm

Some people write about MIT or Harvard or the Head of the Charles but this article deals with the central concerns of our community: sugar cones versus cake cones, jimmies versus sprinkles, Sweet Cream or
French Vanilla.

Our man in Rhode Island, Greg Scott, reports.

Or at least its equipment.

http://www.siaai.com/coldstonepvd.htm

A Coldstone store in Providence, RI has bit the dust. Everything must go.

A woman called on Wednesday and told Mimi that we deserved a Nobel prize for inventing such a great flavor.

Kevin Rafferty is already brushing up his Swedish.

This year the state increased its tax on meals from 5%. The state also gave city and towns the right to collect an additional .75%. Naturally the City of Cambridge added that on to all purchases in restaurants.

Then the city created a new fee: a charge of $100 for each dumpster located behind a building. The city doesn’t collect the trash. It now charges a fee for hiring someone else to remove the trash. It also imposes a $300 fine for dumpsters that are in poor order. $300 a day per dumpster.

Today we received an invoice in the amount of $110.00 for our 2009 Entertainment License. What entertainment you ask since we never have live performances. This fee is for playing music over our stereo.

More news about License and Fees shall follow since more bills will certainly follow.

Lake Wobegon meets Tales of the City, in Mid Cambridge at the end of the year.

From: nessa schear and Ariela S

Do you want to buy Christmas Trees or Wreaths? Do you want to support a good, local cause? Boy Scout Troop and Crew 56 is a co-ed troop, based in Cambridge.

We are selling Christmas trees and wreaths to support our motto of equal opportunity. The money goes to covering equipment, trips where we camp, ski, canoe, and bike, and scholarships.

Troop 56 does not discriminate based on sexual orientation, gender, race, religion, or socio-economic background.

Wreaths are $12
10 yd Garland is $50
5ft Tree is $35
6ft Tree is $40
7ft Tree is $45
8ft Tree is $55

We have gotten trees from this farm for the past few years, and they have been of reliably excellent quality. Contact us at 617-354-9290 and ask to speak with scouts Nessarose and Ariela. We will give you information about arranging for advance payment and pickup times when your order arrives. Nessarose has been a member for five years, and Ariela for two.

From Nessarose and Ariela Schear, Amory Street

Aaron Renn has an interesting blog, called The Urbanphile.

http://www.urbanophile.com/

I was lead there from one of my favorite websites, Joel Kotkin’s
Newgeography.com.

Both writers are urbanists, concerned with cities and city life, and
both are suspicious about current urban trends and their long-term
implications.

Mass. Inc. publishes Commonwealth magazine and it increasingly
essential website,
http://www.cwunbound.org/

All three arise from a decline in mainstream journalism. Their
writers share an attention to facts and are alarmed that those facts
are ignored in favor of loudly proclaimed intentions.

I received an inquiry from China Millman of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.  ”Why does Boston seem to have so many ice cream stores?’

It is often repeated that Bostonians eat more ice cream per capita than people do in other parts of the US.  I think this a never-verified “factoid” but probably true.  I remember once, just before Toscanini’s opened, standing in a snowstorm in Harvard Square, waiting to cross the street.  People on either side of me were eating ice cream cones.  I thought to myself, “this could be a good place to open an ice cream store.”

There are several possible reasons for the existence of so many ice cream stores in Boston.

One is that the city has a lot of good colleges and ice cream is a perfect date for somewhat serious students who don’t drink with the enthusiasm of other collegetown populations.

In fact, before online registration I had a friend who speculated that Bostonians were so willing to wait in line for food at places like Pizzeria Regina and Bartley’s Burgers and the original Legal Sea Foods because twice a year they all waited on line to register for classes.

Boston’s mostly private colleges have a more affluent student body that can pay for very good ice cream but not gourmet dinners.  I once helped a man open an ice cream store in the high desert of California, in a county full of military installations.  His competion was Thrifty Drugs, where at that time you could buy a peculiar cubic scoop of ice cream for 10 cents.

There is also a theory that in cold climates people eat high fat diets to stay warm.  In hot climates they eat spicy low fat diets.  So Bostonians eat more ice cream per capita than people do in Miami.  And eating ice cream usually results in coating your mouth so that you need to drink something.  In hot parts of the US people skip the ice cream and drink huge quantities of iced tea, Coke, Dr. Pepper and RC Cola.

Another theory is historical and relies on the existence of The Triangular Trade during colonial times.  Sugar was brought to New England and fostered the growth of the New England candy industry. Ice cream was an afterthought.  Some historians now say that The Trianglular Trade was a myth but Boston does have a lot of candy companies and a lot of ice cream companies.

Long ago in college, when discussing “location theory” in an urban geography class at Macalester College, my professor said that a major reason for Detroit’s growth as an auto production center was because Henry Ford lived there.  In the case of ice cream in Boston I would mention Howard Johnson, once the king of roadside ice cream stores but pay special attention to Steve Herrell’s decision to move to Boston
and eventually open Steve’s Ice Cream in Somerville, Mass.  I worked at Steve’s, as did Amy Miller of Amy’s Ice Creams in Texas.  Ben and Jerry began as awkward copycats of Steve’s store.  Coldstone and Marble Slab are corporate updates on that first store.  Steve still makes ice cream in Northhampton, Mass. which of course is a collegetown.

Thursday is Thanksgiving and its time to head home to NJ for the holidays. Since most of the people connected with Harvard and MIT will be leaving town Toscanini’s will close on Thursday. On Wednesday
we will be open until 11PM. And we have lot of flavors to accompany that pie including Rum, Bourbon, Egg Nog, Italian Egg Nog, Lemon and Lemon Thyme.

Italian Egg Nog is a flavor that dates back to our first year of operation. It includes orange zest, lemon zest, vanilla beans, Grand Marnier, Amaretto and Anisette. I think it might be the best part of
Christmas in Central Square. We are also making some of this ice cream for the very good Gibbet Hill restaurant in Groton, Mass.

On Friday, Saturday and Sunday we will open at 9AM, one hour later than usual, and close at 11PM.

We won’t serve Breakfast@TheBigTable this weekend. On these quiet weekends we always send people to Miracle of Science, Craigie on Main, Mariposa, Mike and Patty’s. Mike and Patty’s is the best small
restaurant in the city, located on Church St. in Bay Village. New Jersey has the urban legend of Midgetville; we have Bay Village. The people who run Hungry Mother ran the small restaurant that previously
occupied the site of Mike and Patty’s. We understand there is talk of a nouvelle Canadian concept, something close to the cooking of Ontario created with French technique.

Kevin Rafferty has suggested we go to La Casa del Pedro in Watertown for an excellent Latin American breakfast.

Today the mail person delivered The National Dipper and The Ice Cream Reporter.  Talk about planetary convergence, which no one does any longer.

The Ice Cream Reporter has a story about Unilever quitting the Smart Choice Program, which attempt to standardize nutrition labelling on packaged food products.  This means that every person who purchases a
popsicle will be on his own.  I’m old enough to remember Gabby Hayes’ television commercials so I have yet another generational advantage. Unilever also owns Breyers.  Nestle’s own almost everything else.

The Ice Cream Reporter often writes about Haagen-Dazs, and its parent company, Dreyer’s.  In fact the Ice Cream Reporter has hired typographers from an imaginary Scandinavian country just to print the
Haagen-Dazs name, which means nothing in any language spoken by blonde people.   Haagen Dazs has announced a plan to expand its small number of dipping stores.  At one point Haagen Dazs was going to include soft serve custard in the stores but that didn’t happen.  And years ago they had the good idea to combine ice cream with coffee.  We loved that idea more than the combination of ice cream and pretzels that you can find in food courts all over Pennsylvania.  You don’t need an mba to figure out that the problem with Haagen-Dazs stores is they have to sell smaller portions of ice cream that people can buy in pints for less at any 7-11 or gas station in North America.  I once visited a Haagn-Dazs in a beautiful part of Paris.  The store had a maitre d’ which underlined the problem that however good Haagen-Dazs ice cream used to be, in the US it was an affordable middle class luxury, available everywhere.  And you didn’t have to deal with a supercilious graduate of a grand’ ecole before you got the ice cream.

Haagen-Dazs has those extra “a’s in its name but also has a nice promotion to help bees.  Honey bees of course.  From No 5 to 11 Haagen-Dazs will run a twitter campaign that benefits the University
of California at Davis and its noisy, dangerous, sticky programs to preserve bees.  This will cause  a lot of buzz.

The National Dipper focuses on the feisty independent ice cream stores.  Good news is the new DecoPac program to help cake decorators utilize Marvel comic characters.  Call 1-800-DECOPAC or 1-800-893-3063 en espanol.  There is no number for non-existent Scandinavian languages.

The Dipper’s Calender includes the Penn State Ice Cream Short Course, Ja 10-16.  This is the course that launched Ben and Jerry’s.  Write csco@psu.edu  I took a comprable course at Rutgers and we were allowed
more time with the equipment.

Cambridge Local First is a group of independent businesses in
Cambridge. Every year all the members join together to donate money
from their sales from the week after Thanksgiving. This year CLF will
be donating all this money to Cambridge Housing Assistance Fund.
Money for a very good cause. We always thank Cambridge Trust Company
for their generous sponsorship.