Thanks to everyone who commented on my last post and shared tips. Ice Cream 101 at Penn State was great, but overwhelming. The “it’s 5am and I’m still awake and my alarm is set for 6:05” insomnia Friday night into Saturday morning didn’t help. I haven’t had a chance to catch up on sleep so I’m still exhausted. In brief, I learned a lot and the class didn’t fully talk me out of this ice cream business idea. I plan to write about what I learned, but only after I’m no longer hallucinating from exhaustion.
In the meantime, here are two photos from the weekend. It was hard to get decent shots with only our small point and shoot and its max ISO of 400.
We got a behind the scenes tour of Penn State’s Creamery. There were pipes running everywhere, all carefully labelled as to their contents (raw versus pasteurized milk, etc…).
I didn’t get any good shots of ice cream being extruded during the batch freezer demonstrations, but here’s a shot I like of ice cream being mixed and frozen in a cool European machine. It seemed like more of a novelty machine than a workhorse. The only way to get the ice cream out of the tub is with this huge paddle-like thing. The company representative demonstrated how you can make the ice cream in front of your customers and then basically shove the paddle full of ice cream in their face offer up the paddle full of fresh ice cream for them to sample. Kind of reminded me of fudge demonstrations at Niagara Falls.
Yum yum! You sure you don’t want to post some while you are hallucinating? I have this strong feeling that you would say some very memorable stuff!
I have got to catch up on posts so I can put this ice cream field trip into context. Sounds like you have been having adventures.
Thanks, May! I’m going to try to write a summary soon. And maybe I’ll write a post the next time I’m uber sleep deprived, it would probably be pretty entertaining! I have to decide if I really want to sell ice cream or just make it for myself. It’s hard to tell what my little voice is saying.
Yummy!! When I was little my class took a field trip to an apple-juice making factory and that’s exactly what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, I decided. Make apple juice.
Some of my fondest memories are visiting the Cheese Factory in the dairy country surrounded my home, and the chocolate making presses in Ghiradelli square and the Jelly Belly factory in Santa Clara (which by the way is like a Willy Wonka heaven of jellybeans).
By the way, my comment wasn’t about you!! So sorry! I actually had a heck of a time trying to find you – so next time leave MORE links to your blog 🙂
I’m off to find your post about crunchy eaters…
Yes, food rocks. I’m obsessed with the ice cream thing now and I have to decide if that’s what I really want to do or if I’m just looking for any way out of current employment…I would love to do those Ghiradelli and Jelly Belly tours.
And no, I’m sorry about the comment confusion. I should take an internet hiatus before my period, because I become “crazy-sensitive, everything-is-about-me” woman.