Ice Cream Bowl Sunday

Bassetts from the Reading Terminal Market and occasional farmers' market vendor 'Lil Pop Shop will be among the cool treat purveyors participating in Sunday's Ice Cream Bowl benefit for the University City Arts League. You can get your licks in at the league, 4226 Spruce St., from 1 to 4 p.m.

Other frozen dessert makers whose wares you can sample Sunday are Little Baby's, Shake Shack, Ben & Jerry's and West Philly's own Weckerly's.

The ice cream will be served in pottery bowls made by the league's ceramics instructors. For $10 you can walk away with the ice cream and its handcrafted bowl ($30 for a family of four). And, says Noreen Shanfelter, the league's executive director and a regular RTM shopper, there will be plenty of toppings to adorn the ice cream.

Cherries and Berries

Pie cherries from Beechwood Orchards at Headhouse Square Farmers Market

Sweet red and golden cherries from Three
Springs, also at Headhouse Square market

 From The Belly of Paris, by Émile Zola:

The cherries, ranged one by one, resembled the short lips of smiling Chinese girls; the Montmorencies suggested the dumpy mouths of buxom women; the English ones were longer and graver-looking; the common black ones seemed as though they had been bruised and crushed by kisses; while the white- hearts, with their patches of rose and white, appeared to smile with mingled merriment and vexation.

Okay, so I'm sucker for cherries, sweet or tart. I've gone through a couple of quarts of dark red sweets in the last week and a half nibbling them straight. And a couple of quarts of pie cherries, mostly in sorbet, but also a cobbler. I'll probably make a pie this week.

In the meantime, I've gone through many half pints of black raspberries making one of my favorite ice creams. Here's how it's done:

Take two half-pints of black raspberries (about 3 to 4 cups) and place them in a bowl with half a cup of granulated white sugar. Toss and crush, then let them sit for two hours of so.

After two hours, place berries and rendered juice in fine mesh strainer over a bowl, and press with a stiff spatula or other device of your choosing to render out the rest of the juice, leaving behind (and discarding) the seeds and the pulp that clings to it and just won't go through the mesh. Transfer juice to small pot and reduce slightly.

Meanwhile, heat a cup of cream (pasteurized, but not ultra-pasteurized: you can find it Lancaster County Dairy at the Reading Terminal or Whole Foods; Trader Joe's might have it, also) gently with a cup of sugar, stirring until sugar is dissolved. If you have it, stir in a couple tablespoons of plain -- not high fructose -- corn syrup. (I use Karo Light, as opposed to Karo Lite, which I do not recommend.) Combine the cream/sugar mix and raspberry juice, stirring in a tablespoon of vodka. If you have it, use a raspberry eau die vie (Framboise) instead. The addition of the corn syrup helps prevent the finished ice cream from forming large ice crystals. The alcohol lowers the freezing point of the mix, helping keep it scoopable.

Let the mix sit overnight in the refrigerator. Then prepare in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's directions. When done, pack into containers, lightly press plastic wrap into the ice cream (it will be pretty soft), cover and let ripen in the freezer for four hours before serving.

For a real treat, mix in a half- to three-quarters cup of mini chocolate chips or the smallest chunks you can find during the last few minutes in the ice cream machine.

At Headhouse and other farmers markets, black raspberries have been selling for about $4.50 a half-pint. Cherries, sweet or sour, are anywhere from $7 to $9 a quart. Blueberries, which have also started to appear, sell for $3 a half-pint or $5 a pint, making them a berry bargain: they'll be my next ice cream or sorbet, and they make the best cobbler. Prices are about the same at Kauffman's Lancaster County Produce at the Reading Terminal Market though, as usual, L. Halteman Family undersells just about everyone: black raspberries were $3.99 a half-pint there last week, cherries $6.49/quart. I used their black raspberries for my first batch of ice cream, and they were superb.

Reading Terminal Market Fests

For the past few years the Reading Terminal Market has devoted a mid-July Saturday to an ice cream festival. Before that the market sponsored a Sidewalk Sizzle with meats on grills.This year they've been combined into a -- surprise -- "Sidewalk Sizzle and Ice Cream Freeze", to be held July 13 on Filbert Street, a.k.a. Harry Ochs Way.

On the menu (besides ice cream): $1 hot dogs, turkey legs, kabobs, shrimp skewers, grilled pizza, hamburgers, Amish sausages, and Bavarian pork sandwiches. I'll be making a bee-line, however, to the whole lamb provided by Border Springs. Other merchants participating include Bassetts Ice Cream, Beck’s Cajun Café, By George, Hatville Deli, Miller’s Twist, Nanee’s Kitchen, Original Turkey and Wursthaus Schmitz.

The annual Pennsylvania Dutch Festival is scheduled for Aug. 8-10, the Harvest Festival Oct. 12 and Scrapple Fest Nov. 12.

RTM Festivals

Two festivals are coming up at the Reading Terminal Market this summer, one a relative newcomer, the other one that's been going strong for more than two decades.

The relative newcomer (it's only been held for three or four years, iirc) is the Ultimate Philadelphia Ice Cream Festival. This year it will celebrate the 150th anniversary of Bassetts Ice Cream, one of the market's original tenants. It will be held in Center Court next Saturday,

In addition to Bassetts, Philadelphia's finest ice creams will be represented by Miller's Twist (which features Kreider Farm's product), Franklin Fountain, Uncle Dave's, Capogiro and Bredenbeck's Bakery and Ice Cream Parlor of Chestnut Hill. Uncle Dave's is based at Shady Brook Farm in Bucks County, which supplies some of the local fruits and vegetables (including corn) sold at Iovine Brothers Produce. The Berley Brothers of Franklin Fountain, located on Market Street between Front and Second, were prominently featured in an article about ice cream sodas in last Wednesday's New York Times.

The event also features arts and crafts for the kids, live music, games, and more.

For 22 years (with a one-year hiatus) the Reading Terminal Market has celebrated the commonwealth's food heritage with its annual Pennsylvania Dutch Festival. This year it will be held August 11, 12, and 13 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day.

The three-day festival will take place in the Center Court seating area and will feature handmade crafts and traditional foods. On Saturday, the festival also moves outdoors on Arch Street to create a country fair in the city. Amish buggy rides and horse drawn wagon rides around the market, a farm animal petting zoo, and live bluegrass music round out the entertainment.

 July 16: Ice Cream and Crème Glacée

Bassetts Ice Cream has been selling its product in Philadelphia "only" since 1885, but Lewis Debois Bassett first churned his ice cream maker in 1861 in  Salem, New Jersey, which makes this year the 150th anniversary of the enterprise.

So it should not come as a surprise that this year's Ultimate Philadelphia Ice Cream Festival at the Reading Terminal Market will make special observance of the anniversary. The event will be held Saturday, July 16 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. While Bassetts will hold most of the attention, other fine area ice cream makers will participate.

When you're done gorging yourself on ice cream you can head over to Fairmount's Eastern State Penitentiary where Bastille Day will be celebrated and you can taste some alimentaire de la révolution from neighborhood restaurants, including, perhaps, more crème glacée.

Coincidentally, Bassetts produced its ice cream just a block from the penitentiary for much of the 1970s and 1980s.

Learn more about Bassett's history here.

Bringing Ice Cream To China

You have have noticed some new flavors at Bassetts Ice Cream stall in the Reading Terminal Market, including Mango, Green Tea and Macadamia Nut.

Those flavors, which sell respectably in Philadelphia, are big hits in China, where Bassetts has sold its ice cream for the past two years. Michael Strange, proprietor of Bassetts, says he's shipped hundreds of tons since starting in May 2008.

The 40-foot containers are trucked to Port Newark-Elizabeth on a regular basis for export from Bassett's contract plant near Johnstown, Galliker Dairy Co. The ice cream is distributed in the Beijing area.

Strange said he had had inquiries in the past to sell abroad, but the deals always fell apart. The Chinese deal, however, has taken off like hotcakes, er, ice cream on a summer day