Chief ice cream maker Andy worked all day on his part of a special meal we are creating with Seasoned to Taste for this Wednesday, November 2, 2011 at 7pm. Lately we have been busy with things other than the ice creams we make and serve here, or even the usual wholesale flavors we make for restaurants as varied as Stella, Tupelo, Central Kitchen, the Lyceum in Salem, Gibbet Hill in Groton, and all the B Good hamburger palaces.

We are working on a flavor that evokes short-term memory loss, because of a play to be presented early in 2012 at the Central Square Theater.

We are also working on a flavor that suggests the idea of a worm-hole, which in this neighborhood is not something you find when looking for bait or gardening. A worm-hole is a theoretical mathematical shape that may enable time travel. We are making that flavor as part of a celebration of a new high definition video link between MIT and Stanford.

Chef owner Robert Harris of Seasoned to Taste describes his own struggles to create Toscanini’s Ice Cream Picnic.

“After an epic menu planning session with Mimi and Andy of Tocanini’s, a menu is born. Let me tell you folks, incorporating ice cream in to a six course dinner is very challenging…alas we have tempted fate and we think the results will be extraordinary. Check out the menu below:

Amuse Duet

Wellfleet Oyster, Vermont Cider Mignonette Granita
Pulled Pork Sandwich, Coleslaw Ice Cream

Grappa Bloody Mary, Celery Sorbet Straw, Dixie Cup

Just Beet it
Roasted Golden Beet
Red Beet and Goat Cheese, and Thyme Ice Cream
Seared beet tops and Candy stem

Three
Butter Poached Lobster, Red Carrot Foam
Eva’s Tempura Edible Flower, Locally foraged Mushrooms

Four
Roasted Cavendish Quail Brulee, Sunny Side up Egg,
African Blue Basil Mascarpone Farcir
Country Pate Stuffed Delacata Squash Ring
Burnt Caramel Sauce Seared Bronze Fennel

Five
House Brined Lamb Ham, Butternut Puree Sauce, Seared Brussels Sprout Leaves
Mint and Pine Nut Pesto Sorbet, Garlic Dust

Dessert
Cheddar and Honey Crisp Apple Soufflé with
Ice Wine Disk, Dried Apple Chip

Gus Rancatore via gmail.com to Posterous, bcc: Corby, bcc: Cornelia, bcc: Diane

show details 7:09 PM (0 minutes ago)

Corby Kummer writes about Necco wafers in The Atlantic. Necco sold its building to Novartis and recently abandoned a natural line of flavors to return to their previous forumulations.

http://www.theatlantic.com/life/archive/2011/10/new-natural-neccos-now-old-news/247326/

Corby follows up on an article by Taryn Luna from The Boston Globe.

http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2011/10/25/necco_goes_back_to_original_wafer_recipe/

I was the oldest of five children, born to parents who’d lived through the Depression. And they lived through the Depression by eating Necco wafers. As a child if we went to the movies with our father he would frugally buy a nickel roll of Necco wafers for all of us to share while watching double bills in the St. George Theater near the Staten Island Ferry Terminal. How many Alka-Seltzer-like tablets were there in a roll? Did we each get two, one for each movie, perhaps one to dissolve watching Jimmy Stewart in Broken Arrow, and another for the madcap misadventures of Frances Joins the Army. Francis was the talking mule whose black and white classics could be seen on Saturday afternoons during the long afternoon that was the Eisenhower years.

Years later after opening Toscanini’s one of our first memorable customers was a man who claimed to a faculty member at MIT. He came in the store during our first month of operation, “Do you know how Necco wafers luminesce?” he asked. Necco wafers were not a happy memory for me; they represented the economic calamity visited upon my parents which reverberated upon our own generation. “You know how some Necco wafers light up in the dark when you bite them?” And of course I did because I could recall looking down the theater row where my younger brother, sitting next to my father, would be snapping Wintergreen Necco wafers like a beatnik on Dobie Gillis. The man who claimed to be an MIT professor asked to try all the ingredients in the store in an attempt to find similar illuminating foods. Was he really an MIT professor? I still see him on the streets of Cambridge, noticeably heavier, and that makes me think he has been eating other things.

Running an ice cream store in Cambridge is like running a bar in
Casablanca, or probably any place in the world. Its easy for everyone
to find us and order an ice cream cone or cup of coffee.

This weekend one of our most cherished alumni returned, Brian Fair,
musician. Brian is from Milford Mass., where he was high school
Valedictorian.. He went to Boston University and is best-known as the
vocalist for hardcore band, Shadows Fall, before organizing Overcast.
He began playing guitar and drums in the space rock band Transient.
But what I remember most vividly was his ability to make lots very
good ice cream while doing telephone interviews in English with
Japanese fans and journalists. Brian’s bands were very big in Japan
and he took care of the fan base. “We’re keepin’ it real and looking
forward to getting back to Japan!” Brian was in town while recording
a new album in western Mass. He is living in St. Louis, Missouri. And of course he is Keepin’ It Real.

Monday here at the Central Square State Fair. Farmers Market today! Hooray.

We have Spicy Butterscotch and Hot Fudge so sundaes can be better.

It will be a cheerful evening at New England Conservatory’s beautiful Jordan Hall. A Free evening of Death Carols.

http://necmusic.edu/death-carols

The Tech has an article on the MIT Model Railroad Club, which is much more than guys with lichen.

http://tech.mit.edu/V131/N42/modelrailroadclub.html

Here are the flavors for a sunny Monday in October.
Aaron and Diego are both here. They are practicing many things in anticipation of their upcoming tour.

French Vanilla
Belgian Chocolate
Chocolate Chip
Malted Vanilla
B3
Cocoa Pudding
Wort
Mint Chocolate Chip
Rum Raisin
Mango
Strawberry
Nocciola
Cake Batter
Ginger Snap Molasses
Grape Nut
Vietnamese Coffee
Earl Grey
White Coffee Hydrox Cookie
Raspberry
Rice Krispie Trat
Bourbon Vienna Finger Cookie
Espresso
Malted Chocolate
Peanut Butter Honey
Guinness
Cinnamon Nutmeg
Green Tea Ginger
Almond Joy
Blueberry

Coconut Sorbet
Mango Sorbet

Unless you want to eat a burrito inside an ATM cubicle Harvard Square is actually an unpromising place to eat. Central Square offers a much better assortment of places and food. Here is a recent and partial list.

Salts
905 Main St.
617 876-8444
www.salsrestaurant.com

Craigie on Main
853 Main St.
617 497-5511
www.craigieonmain.com

Rendezvous
502 Mass. Ave.
617 576 1900
www.rendezvouscentralsquare.com

Bondir
279 Broadway
Ste A
Cambridge, MA 02139
617 661-0009
www.bondircambridge.com

Area Four
500 Technology Square
Main St.
617 758-4444

http://www.areafour.com/

Catalyst
300 Technology Square
617) 576-3000

http://www.catalystrestaurant.com/

Where your venture capitalist takes you when they squeeze you out.

Central Kitchen
567 Mass. Ave.
617 268-0106
www.enormous.tv/central

Firebrand Saints
1 Broadway
617) 401-3399

http://firebrandsaints.com/

One week old. The new restaurant from the team behind Central Kitchen

Meadhall
4 Cambridge Center
617 714-4372
www. http://themeadhall.com/
Guess what this place is.

Central Bottle
196 Mass. Ave.
617 225-0040
www.centralbottle.com

Flour
190 Mass. Ave.
617 225-2525

http://flourbakery.com/

EVOO/ ‘Za
350 Third St.
617 661-3866
www.evoorestaurant.com

Miracle of Science
321 Mass. Ave.
617 868-2866.
www.miracleofscience.us/
l
Middlesex
315 Mass. Ave.
617 617 868 MSEX
www.middlesexlounge.com

AFRICAN
Bytes
64 Sidney st.
617 621-3513
www.

Baraka Cafe
80.5 Pearl St.
617 868-3951
www.barakacafe.com

Asmara Ethiopian
739 Mass. Ave.
617 617) 864-7447
www.asmararestaurantboston.com

Coffee shops
1369
757 Mass. Ave.
617 576-4600
www.1359coffeehouse.com

Voltage
295 Third St.
617 714-3974
www.voltagecoffee.com

Starbucks
655 Mass. Ave
617
www.

Dunkin Donuts
Mass. Ave.
617
www.

Toscanini’s
899 Main St.
617 491-5877
www.tosci.com

ASIAN

Mary Chung’s
464 Mass. Ave.
617 864-1991
www.marychung.com

Royal East
792 Main St.
617 661-1660
www.royaleast.com

Pu Pu Hot Pot
907 Main St.
617 491-6636
www.pupuchinese.com

All Asia
332 Mass. Ave.
617 497-1544
www.allasiabar.com
A Chinese restaurant and bar that is also the Cape Cod League for rock bands
Floating Rock
485 Mass. Ave.
617 455-4009
www.floatingrockcambridge.com

Pepper Sky
20 Pesrl St.
617 495-2541
wwww.pepperskys.com
Thai

Rangzen Tibetan
24 Pearl St.
617 354-8881
www.rangzenfood.com

Theolonious Monkfish
524 Mass. Ave.
617 441-2116
www.facebook.com/theloniousmonkfish

Thailand Cafe
302 Mass. Ave.
617 492-2494
www.
A very good Sezechuan restaurant hidden behind the name.

IINDIAN
Royal Bengal
Mass. Ave.
617
www.

MIDDLE EASTERN FOOD

Middle East
472 Mass. Ave.
617
www.mideastclub.com

Zu Zu
474 Mass. Ave.
617 864 -3278 x 237
www.zuzubar.com

Olive Tree Cafe
245 Mass. Ave.
617 441-8689
www.

BURGERS
Wendy’s
Mass. Ave.
617
www

Four Burgers
704 Mass. Ave.
617 441-5444
www.fourburgers.com

McDonald’s
Mass. ave.
617
www.

PIZZA
Hi Fi Pizza & Giant Sub
496 Mass. Ave.
617 492-4600
www.

Cinderella’s
901 Main St.
617 576-0280
www.cinderellasitalianfood.com

Chicago Pizza
239 Mass. Ave.
617 497 – 5555
www.cambridgepizza.com

The LATimes is on the job.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/10/google-lawn-gets-android-ice-cream-sandwich-statue.html

Not only does the article have a photo, it has a video! Which you could probably watch on your Android phone.

Yes.

CambridgeDay.com is something I recommend to everyone. Here’s a story from today

http://www.cambridgeday.com/2011/10/15/this-coffee-klatch-was-really-about-the-coffee/

Sunday, October 16, 2011

This coffee klatch was really about the coffee
By Marc Levy
Published: October 15, 2011

Toscaninini’s in Central Square drew some of Cambridge’s coffee elite Friday, including the owners of 1369 Coffeehouse and Voltage Coffee & Art. (Photos: top, Jenn Mau; middle, Elisha Marshall; and bottom, Andrew Teman, all via Flickr)

Coffee is many things to many people, but all coffee makers revere its role in bringing people together to talk — which is what it did Friday morning, as some of Cambridge’s coffee elite met at Toscanini’s in Central Square to talk about what’s good, bad, old and new in the industry, and what Cambridge is doing about it.

The brewers and aficionados included Gus Rancatore, of Toscanini’s; Jaime Van Schyndel, the roaster behind Barismo in Arlington and dwelltime, the cafe under construction on Broadway in Cambridge; Lucy R. Valena of Voltage Coffee & Art in Kendall Square; Joshua Gerber of 1369 Coffeehouse in Central and Inman squares; Simon Yu and Alison Novak of Simon’s Coffee Shop in Porter Square; Corby Kummer, a food writer (including of “The Joy of Coffee”) and a senior editor at The Atlantic; Corky White, a Boston University anthropology professor and author of “Coffee Life in Japan”; Sandra Fairbank, restaurant designer and author of an unpublished book on French cafes; and Vaughn Tan, a food writer and Harvard business and sociology student.

Because it was opening day at the Hi-Rise Bread Company location at 1663 Massachusetts Ave., the baristas and brewers who couldn’t come sent a box of cookies — delicious, artisanal Oreos with an intense, slightly bitter chocolate and astonishingly rich cream.

There was a calling out of Keurig, the maker of home and office coffee machines and their infernal individual-serving, one-use K-Cup packets, for reasons of low quality, skimming of customers and environmental waste.

And there was, of course, industry gossip — “Seattle peaked. There’s now a lot of entitlement, but not really a scene. I haven’t heard people talk about Victrola [Coffee Roasters] for about two years” — and discussion of how to distinguish trends from fads and whether to pursue either. “A couple of years ago you had to have a Clover machine, now no one wants one,” Rancatore said, while White noted the newest phase: Japanese equipment. “You can only know it was a fad when it’s over,” she said.

But the topics that dominated were Starbucks, sameness, crafting distinct coffee communities and where Cambridge fits in all that.

“Cambridge should be a hotbed,” said Van Schyndel, although he worried there would be a rush of coffee shops opening, even next to other shops. “I’m concerned on this side of river we’re dragging our feet.”

Rancatore and White provided a history lesson of Cambridge’s coffee explosion in the beat 1950s, with some 16 shops in Harvard Square alone, three crammed in where the square’s post office sits. The boom included the Blue Parrot and Cafe Capriccio, which reopened as Cafe Mozart; the survivor from that era is Cafe Pamplona, which came along in 1958.

“So we’ve been there, in a way,” White said.

There are five or six cafes just in Harvard Square, including three Starbucks — and the months-old addition to the chain that even drew praise for the design of its second-story space — “and here we all are,” Rancatore said, looking at the proprietors gathered around his shop’s Big Table. (Rancatore knows something about this. He ran the Someday Cafe in Somerville’s Davis Square before, during and after the arrival of a Starbucks. It closed in a landlord dispute, replaced by a crepe restaurant, but Diesel Cafe continues to thrive directly across the street from the chain location.)

The trick is to serve different, if overlapping communities, the group said. Most expressed a degree of horror at some cafes’ laptop culture (“I cannot work in a cafe,” Tan said. “I never go to Diesel because everyone’s working, and I haven’t been in a Starbucks in 15 years”), with Barismo being famously unfriendly to lingerers with laptops and Hi-Rise reputed to have opened without a single outlet for customer use. But Van Schyndel said dwelltime will have a communal outlet, like Toscanini’s, so laptop users are clustered. While he knows he’ll draw venture capitalists with business to discuss, he also knows he’ll draw knitters and craftspeople from the neighboring Gather Here, and prefers to focus on the space he’s carving out for people to come in to give talks or lead discussions.

“Everybody can cater to different groups,” Van Schyndel said. “It’s not about turning people away.”

For 1369, there is no ideal customer, Gerber said. “For me, the ideal customer is a regular customer. We pride ourselves on being a place where kids with tattoos and grandmas come — where people who don’t normally interact do. I’ve seen badass crazy customers take 15 minutes to talk to a venture capitalist. I love that,” he said. “I appreciate certain things in customers: people with a willingness to talk, who come back and who are interested in food and have a community perspective.”

Seattle transplant Valena — who’s hosting the next likely get-together for the coffee crowd, a Nov. 5 barista masquerade with “no throwdowns, just dancing and beer” — has a unique mix of challenges and gifts at Voltage, a West Coast-influenced cafe that is leading square development into being a destination for more than innovation-industry workers.

Valena can look forward to potential years of disruption from MIT’s reconstruction of 26 acres around the nearby red line T stop and work on the Constellation Center performance space intended to go across the street. But she can also anticipate plenty of business from architects, engineers and construction contractors to add to the art fans and venture capitalists she already gets.

If not a lesson applicable to all coffee entrepreneurs, her mix of customers at least offers her plenty of entertainment.

“It’s a contemporary art space with a contemporary vibe, but it’s full of all these suits talking about high-profile products — and I’ve offered them a choice between cinnamon toast and animal crackers,” Valena said. “If we shut down to set up for an arts exhibit, it’s all business people, and we shut down for hour and its all hipsters. Its a destination for hipsters and it’s a ‘local’ for business.”

·

We’re not serving Breakfast@TheBigTable this weekend of October 15-16.

We may go see Savage Memory at the MFA.

At 3PM on Sunday the BSO Chamber Players will be at spectacular Jordan Hall. This is not FREE. Everyone should visit Jordan Hall.

Phillips Andover has reopened its wonderful Addison Gallery of Art.

http://www.andover.edu/museums/addison/Pages/default.aspx

We may go Rhodes Island for the best Jack o’ Lantern Festival

Jack O’ Lantern Spectacular
Providence, Rhode Island, USA
Mid October
Description
It’s the biggest and brightest pumpkin patch in New England! This October Roger Williams Park Zoo makes Halloween not only spooky, but spectacular, with its first-ever Jack O’ Lantern Spectacular.

Imagine over 5000 illuminated pumpkins on display throughout a 3-acre woodland trail. These aren’t your ordinary, everyday jack o’ lanterns. Sure, you’ll see an assortment of fun and spooky faces – but Zoo visitors should be prepared for something truly “spectacular.”

A team of over 30 professional pumpkin carvers spend six weeks creating their artistry. Prepare yourself for Jim Morrison, Martin Luther King, Abe Lincoln and a host of historic figures and celebrities. Catch a glimpse of Bugs Bunny, Mickey, Minnie and other Disney friends. See a tribute to children’s fantasy hero Harry Potter and of course, find yourself in a wild pumpkin patch of endangered species. This is an amazing assortment of intricately designed jack o’ lanterns – 150,000 pounds in all – literally brought to life with ornate carvings, special lighting effects and musical themes.
Venue
Roger Williams Park Zoo
Directions
1000 Elmwood Ave.
Times
6 p.m. to 11 p.m.
Admission & Parking
For Members: $7.50 for adults, $5 for children (ages 3 – 12 years) and $6.50 for seniors. Children under 3 years admitted free.
For Non-Members: $9 for adults, $6 for children (ages 3 – 12 years) and $7.50 for seniors. Children under 3 years admitted free.
Zoo and Spectacular combination tickets and group rates are available. Group rates can be obtained by calling 401-467-0150.
Website

http://www.rwpzoo.org

Infophone
401–785-3510

French Vanilla
Belgian Chocolate
Chocolate Chip
Khulfee
Butter Chocolate Chip
Grape Nut Raisin
Mint Chocolate Chip
B3
Burnt Caramel
Ginger
Mocha
Green Tea
Cocoa Pudding
Strawberry
Wort (beer from Cambridge Brewing before it is fermented)
Maple Walnut
Malted Vanilla
Hydrox Cookie
Espresso
Bourbon
Sour Cream Vanilla Bean
Earl Grey
Almond Joy
Fluffernutter
Vienna Finger Cookie
Raspberry Cheesecake Chip
Salty Saffron
Blackberry Lime
Coffee Heath
White Coffee

Coconut Sorbet
Mango Sorbet

Why are so many good things from Japan so small?

Two weeks ago at the Childrens’ Museum there was a publication party for Deb Samuels’s new book on Japanese food. We made bento boxes and ate from them. I would have worked harder in school if my lunch had been this good and this clever cute. Now The Globe takes time out from its sports coverage to write about all this and much more having to do with Japanese food.

http://bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/foodanddining/2011/10/11/debra-samuels-shares-story-how-she-learned-prepare-foods-japan/E2LUwbVGNum1hCCc0dlp5H/story.html