"premium ice cream" news and stories

• It's summertime, so that means barbecues and parties and drinks with umbrellas and foods on little sticks. Gourmet has a guide to the parties you'll throw or attend for the next three months.
• Gourmet says that salads can be the summer version of one pot meals. Here are recipes for Roasted Vegetable Panazella, Wild Rice with Smoked Fish and Snap Peas, and Wheat Berry and Smoked Chicken Salad.
• Put together an eco-conscious picnic.
• In the print edition: Anthony Bourdain writes about food in Miami; Jane and Michael Stern hit the road to find the best pizza; the magazine tastes 125 different Zinfandels and gives their report; and an explanation on the difference between "premium" ice cream and "super premium." No, it's not just the price.

I haven't seen this at my local supermarket yet (though admittedly I'm not really in "summer mode" yet so I haven't explored the ice cream section as much as I should), but Haagen-Dazs has introduced a new flavor to its line of premium ice creams: Mayan Chocolate. And what makes chocolate ice cream "Mayan?" It's premium chocolate ice cream, with a hint of cinnamon! Sounds rather interesting.

I guess it's an old recipe, the way that the Mayans used to make chocolate 2500 years ago. While the advertising has a bit of hyperbole ("We went back to explore history. To pinpoint the genesis. And to discover the true flavor."), I'm going to the store tonight and see if they have it.

Has anyone tried it yet?

Kate, the Accidental Hedonist, has posted a neat trick that will enable you to choose the better ice cream when confronted with brands that you have never tasted before at the market. The trick is to weigh the (frozen) containers, since ice cream is sold by volume, not weight. In other words, if a manufacturer churns more air into his or her product, it will fill up a bigger container without using up extra products. By weighing the cartons of ice cream, you can choose a higher quality brand that will taste richer, creamier and better than a cheaper one.

There are different grades of ice creams that are based on overrun, which is the term for the amount of air mixed into the product. The cheapest ice creams have 90 to 100 percent overrun - meaning that they are half air - while premium ice creams have 60-80 percent and super-premium ice creams can have anywhere from 10-40 percent. Some air in the ice cream is good, as it lightens up the texture and keeps it from being a dense, chewy mass, but it's just silly to pay $5 for a gallon of ice cream when you're really only getting a quart. Next time, weigh the containers or just go for the ice creams labeled as "super premium" when you are looking for high quality indulgence. Your taste buds will thank you.

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