Can you still get a sense of community in a large urban environment?
Yes you can. It may take a little work, creativity and organizational passion, but it is possible.
A wonderful and very sweet example of this is Spark Social's San Francisco Ice Cream Festival.
Their festival has become so engaging that a major media news outlet covered the event.
On Sunday, August 19, 2018, as reported at abc7news.com, “Spark Social's San Francisco Ice Cream Festival featured frozen treats from vendors all across the Bay Area including Uji Time featuring Japanese tayaki fish-shaped cones and soft-serve and Powder Shaved Snow dishing up organic Taiwanese shaved snow, which is fluffier and milky unlike shaved ice. Ice cream makers dished out classics along with exclusive special items for the festival.”
grapplingstars.com femcompetitor.com writer, facebookcover-sparksocialsf.com photo credit
Some of the participants included Trader Jim’s, who bring the familiar flavor of Dole Whip to the Bay Area, Frozen Khusterd who feature different flavored custard bars on sticks custom dipped into melted chocolate and topped with nuts, sprinkles or cookie pieces and Churn Urban Creamery who have dreamed up an Instagrammable treat called the "Matcha Alaska" which includes strawberry rhubarb ice cream topped with matcha meringue and blowtorched to a golden brown.
Sounds absolutely yummy.
grapplingstars.com femcompetitor.com writer, sparksocialsf.com photo credit
Let’s meet Spark Social of San Francisco.
At their friendly and down to earth site sparksocialsf.com they share, “Spark is a new urban gathering space located in the heart of Mission Bay. We are a food truck park, beer/sangria garden, and event space designed to bring the neighborhood together for fun times, day or night. We collaborate with small businesses to ignite the spirit of community by creating warm and welcoming spaces to grub and gather. We work with over 150 food trucks from all over the Bay Area which we rotate every single day for both lunch and dinner.
Spark is developed by the SoMa StrEat Food Park team and is their 2nd endeavor to build community by cultivating social spaces around street food.
The Mission Bay location is a partnership with Parklab, a project of District Development, transforming vacant lots into creative community hubs in SF’s newest neighborhood.
Spark was designed and built by San Francisco-based LMNOP Design, which specializes in branded environments and public spaces.”
As you can see, creating a sense of community is very possible in a large urban environment.
Especially if involves eating one of the greatest comfort foods in the world called ice cream.
We have a visiting writer who knows this all too well and is willing to share.
The author Dale Phillip enjoys writing about the history of Food and Drink, nutrition and alternative medicine. Formerly a Midwesterner, she lives in Southern California and is a self-proclaimed foodie. Please enjoy.
Please enjoy
We All Scream for Ice Cream
grapplingstars.com femcompetitor.com writer, pexels.com pixabay.com photo credit
By Dale Phillip
We may think of ice cream as a modern creation because it's frozen, but ancient flavored ices date back to those inventive Chinese, who started eating their version as far back as 3000 B.C.
Originally it was snow or ice mixed with honey and perhaps a few berries. And once again, that adventurous explorer Marco Polo may get credit for bringing back the idea from China to his native Italy, where the royal court of the Medici family embraced it. These ices were the forerunner of our modern day Italian Ice, sorbet and sherbet. In 1553, Catherine de Medici married French king Henry II and introduced him to the frozen delight. It was a big hit at court, but like so many other specialties, ices were available only to the elite, and the masses were left out.
By the mid-seventeenth century, chefs were using dairy mixed with ice and called it "cream ice." Lacking freezers, some Italian cooks had "runners" who were sent up into the mountains for snow, racing back with their precious cargo before it melted. The frozen concoction was reported to be a favorite of Julius Caesar and his buddies. A commoner had no chance of sampling the royal treat until the first known ice cream shop, Café Procope, was opened in Paris in the year 1660 by a Sicilian named Procopio. He added eggs and cream to his recipe, and the world's love affair with this frozen treat began. Italians eventually created their own version and called it gelato.
The first official account of ice cream in the U.S. shows up in a letter written in 1744 by a guest of Maryland Governor William Bladen. The first known advertisement for ice cream appeared in the a New York newspaper on May 12, 1777, when confectioner Philip Lenzi announced that ice cream was available in his shop "almost every day." Presidents Washington, Jefferson and Madison all served the frozen treat at state dinners.
With the invention of insulated ice houses around 1800, the manufacturing of ice cream was rolled-out on a mass scale. An industrious Baltimore milk dealer named Jacob Fussell introduced the residents of his city to this delicious product in 1851, and as mechanical inventions and technology increased, new forms of freezing and homogenizing the milk and cream became possible.
As ice cream spread across the country, drug stores began featuring the popular dessert by installing soda fountains. With the invention of the ice cream soda, the familiar title "soda jerk" became a household word. When churches condemned the consumption as sinful, especially on the Sabbath, the clever fountain owners eliminated the fizzy water on Sundays to appease the clergy and served a simple ice cream "sundae" instead. One might surmise that Sunday was probably the most popular day of the week to indulge.
Growing up in the 50's, who didn't sneak some change from mom's handbag to ride their bikes to the closest local store and buy a Popsicle, a Fudgsicle or a Drumstick cone? There was no stopping us, as we were smitten.
Not content with simple flavors, the appearance of gourmet ice cream in the 1970's took its place in the form of premium, high butterfat brands (and high prices), introduced by Haagen Dazs, Ben and Jerry's and many local dairies. Dove Bars became the rage, after a humble beginning in a local candy shop on the northwest side of Chicago, and had been a neighborhood favorite for three decades before the Mars Candy Company purchased the recipe in 1985. All of which demonstrated that Americans gladly paid higher prices for premium brands and inventive flavors.
So there you have it in a nutshell. Be it a sundae, a chocolate ice cream soda, soft serve, gelato, a pint of rich premium or the many novelty ice cream creations in the freezer of your local supermarket, we don't have to scream for it anymore. It's everywhere.
Author Dale Phillip, an admitted ice cream fiend, gets weak in the knees just thinking about a hot fudge sundae with coffee ice cream. As a child, it was Fudgsicles and Drumsticks, and an occasional Good Humor Chocolate Malt bar, when her father could flag down a cruising white truck and treat her. She laments the fact that her childhood favorites are now difficult to find, including Butter Pecan and New York Cherry.
Visit her other articles on ezine under Food and Drink.
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OPENING PHOTO by Alison Yin Photography
http://sparksocialsf.com/about/
https://abc7news.com/food/san-francisco-ice-cream-festival-draws-sellout-crowd/4003242/
http://EzineArticles.com/9823842
https://ezinearticles.com/?We-All-Scream-for-Ice-Cream&id=9823842
