Here at The Parlour HQ (aka our dining room table, for now) we’ve been talking about having a once-monthly Sunday ice cream brunch. I think we came up with the idea after seeing Molly Moon mention serving oatmeal topped with ice cream at one of their shops. Since we’re curious about whether this is something folks would actually be interested in, here’s a sample menu we’ve been fiddling around with:
Slow-cooked steel cut oats topped with a scoop of cinnamon ice cream and housemade preserves
Buttermilk pancakes topped with banana ice cream, pecans, and maple syrup
House granola+your choice of yogurt, non-dairy milk, or a scoop of frozen yogurt
Sourdough cinnamon rolls, seasonal scones and coffee cakes
And, of course, fresh juice, espresso drinks and hand-dripped coffees.
So what do y’all think? Would you come out for ice cream brunch? Our seating will be a bit more limited than most restaurants, so we’d probably make the hours longer than most brunch places. And in the summertime there will be plenty of room out in the plaza/in front of the shop. Let us know what you think in the comments (or if you’ve got any menu suggestions), and we’ll pick a random commenter to win a jar of our granola!
Posted by Mrs. Parlour at 8:04 PM Sunday, January 13
Well, we’ve just returned from what is sure to be our last vacation in a looong time. I’m calling it the Mini Ice Cream Tour of the Northeast. We consumed ice cream from Little Baby’s Ice Cream, Capogiro (okay, that was gelato…and we went at least three times), The Franklin Fountain, Arethusa, and the Farmer’s Cow. Most of our ice cream eating was done in Philly, the city we moved from, and the reason we opened an ice cream business. For some reason, there are way more ice cream joints in the northeast than down south. When we moved here, we were stunned (surprised? some other word?) at the lack of ice cream parlours in our new town. So when Yoni decided grad school wasn’t for him, it seemed only natural that we’d fill the ice cream void in Durham. Now that we make ice cream for a living, it’s interesting to go back to the places we used to frequent and see if they’re as good as we remembered (mostly, yes!) (more…)
Posted by Mrs. Parlour at 6:58 PM Thursday, January 3
A while back I was strolling through the Durham Farmers’ Market and got gifted a bunch (well, quite a few bunches) of beets from Lil’ Farm. We decided to make a test batch, since we’d heard of other folks making beet ice cream:
We started with a Thomas Keller recipe, and churned it in our home ice cream maker. The first batch was delicious, so we decided to tweak the recipe a bit and make a batch to sell! Our beet ice cream is mostly beet, with just a bit of orange and some vanilla bean paste. We’re not trying to hide the flavor; as Tom Robbins said, “Beets are deadly serious.”
What’s the strangest ice cream flavor you’ve tasted or made? Did you like it? Let us know in the comments, and we’ll pick a random winner to receive a pint of the beet ice cream!
Posted by Mrs. Parlour at 4:17 PM Wednesday, June 6
