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The three-gallon tub of ice cream
By adamg on Fri, 07/10/2015 - 4:32pm
When we asked our daughter what she wanted for her birthday this year, she had just one specific thing in mind: A tub of ice cream from the Puritan Ice Cream factory on Washington Street in Roslindale, up by Forest Hills. The idea of having an ice-cream factory in her neighborhood has long fascinated her. And knowing their smallest size is three gallons made a Puritan tub seem, well even more special.
We went down today for a party tomorrow (they're only open until 4, Mon-Fri.). You enter the side door (not the front one on Washington St). into a tiny waiting room with a small window that opens into an office. Tell the manager sitting there what flavor you want, he calls down to the factory floor, you hand over your $25 and in less than a minute, some guy dressed in a winter coat, thick pants and a warm hat comes out from the factory with your tub - which he tells you will feed 40 or 50 as he brings it out to your car for you.
Most cool, at least until you get the thing home and realize it won't fit in the freezer of your side-by-side, which makes you make an emergency ice run to the nearest market in the hopes that if you fill the bottom of your refrigerator with oh, say, 20 lbs of ice, and then lower the refrigerator temperature and surround the tub with the ice, that it will last until tomorrow.
Before we entombed it in ice, we weighed the behemoth: 15.8 pounds.
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Comments
Good luck!
Hope you can coax it in to lasting until tomorrow!
We had actually learned that Puritan now only sells industrial quantities of ice cream (to out\r disappointment). Supposedly they do still ice cream treats -- possibly in quantities that might fit into our freezer. Someday, we will actually try and find out5 if this is true.
happy birthday!
So does this mean we're all invited over for an ice cream social? What fun!
Ice cream party
At Adam's house!
Butterscotch and jimmies for all!
I've always wondered about that place--good to know.
"which he tells you will feed 40 or 50..."
Well, how many registered Uhub users are there? I'm certain we can all eat our share before it melts.
Also
Since when has the kidlet graduated to being "our daughter"?
She's a daughter of the Hub
She's a daughter of the Hub now....
Usually when
they are suddenly taller than you.
Happy birthday, grown-up kidlet!
She'll always be our kidlet ...
Gah, I hope she doesn't see this, which I basically just copied from a post I did to a Roslindale-specific Facebook group (Keep Roslindale Quirky, which I think you have to be logged into Facebook to see), where not everybody knows the kidlet.
Dry Ice
I know it's not that close to where you are but Brookline Ice and Coal is 24/7 and they sell freezer size blocks of dry ice. If it's 2am and you suddenly want to have some dry ice fun, they are the place to call.
In Somerville there used to be a automated dry ice machine which would dispense a block for some coins. I didn't know it was long dead until after I put in a few bucks worth of quarters and got nothing out of it. I called the number listed on the side and they laughed saying they tape over the coin slots and people just rip the tape off. They did offer me a refund but sadly no 2am dry ice.
We had a failing fridge...
... and we thought dry ice might help. It didn't much. One needs to use it in a way that leaves only a limited amount of air to cool in addition to food (or medicine). As it was, it totally sublimated away overnight. ;-}
(We had a new refrigerator on order -- but it got delayed. Our solution -- buy a mini fridge to fit into the spot that once housed a trash compacter. So now we have an emergency back up -- which is fine for storing juice and the like).
But our trip to Brookline Ice and Coal was fun...
Huh!
Are there still coal furnaces in use today? If so, how common are they?
not uncommon in rural areas, some in suburbs and even city
Burning coal in a stove built for the purpose is actually a pretty efficient source of heat. And yes, good hard coal (aka anthracite) is fairly clean - certainly more so than burning wood. (Of course, most coal is 'soft' (aka bituminous) - sulphury and tarry and not clean at all).
I grew up in rural southern NJ in the 70s, and coal stoves were very common. Good quality yet inexpensive coal from PA was readily available, for regular delivery or in small retail amounts.
Here in MA I think coal has to come further and is more expensive, but even so, my in-laws in Framingham had a coal stove for years. They eventually converted it to wood pellet but my dad-in-law has expressed occasional regret on that score. Wood pellet availability and pricing is more volatile than coal, and per BTU nowadays it costs slightly more.
When I came to Boston in the 80s, you could still see coal deliveries being made to houses on Comm Ave through the small shutes in the sidewalk. And I still sometimes catch the smell of a hard coal stove when walking in the Back Bay in the winter. A good hard coal fire smells a bit like a spicy cigar.
Crucial Detail Missing
So what flavor did you get? I hope you will let us all know how things turn out!
And here I thought I had a nose for news ...
After careful consideration, we went for vanilla, as a base onto which her friends can drizzle fudge, chocolate and, of course, the all important gummy worms - the good, shiny kinds, not the cruddy matte ones covered in sugar (you don't want your gummy worms doused in more sugar, natch).
I was shocked speechless
by your omission of that key fact.
There's nothing like a good vanilla milkshake to sharpen one's journalism skills.
Happy Birthday, Lady!
All the cool folks have their birthdays around this time of year...
This is a really neat idea. Since my birthday (end of January) was bookended by two blizzards, decided to celebrate Unbirthday at the end of July. $25 isn't a lot to shell over for such a treat, and it's amazing how many friends one can make with an industrial sized quantity of ice cream at the start of the Dog Days. (Thanks for the inspiration! Best wishes!)
***
(Edited to change 'kidlet' to 'lady.')
list of what they offer on their website
In fact, that's pretty much all they have on their website!
It may not be quite as high-end as JP Licks/Christina's/Tosci's, but it's still pretty dang good, and for the price you pay at the Rosi factory outlet, it's an amazing bargain.
(and Most Happy Birthday wishes to your daughter, Adam!)
Such A "Cool" Website - I Could Spend All Day Browsing There!
Best bet = eskimo cooler packed with ice
Next time, you could get the ice from The Ice Box (right across the street from Puritan).
Or as Bostondog suggests, dry ice from Brookline Ice and Coal would work even better (just off the Jamaicaway after the Rt 9/Huntingdon overpass). Bring good gloves with you so you don't freezer burn yourself and get a couple 1" slabs - which you can gently break into smaller pieces at home with a hammer if need be (or get a couple pound bag pre-chipped if you don't mind paying more - won't last as long though).
I've bought big containers of ice cream from Puritan for special school events. It actually makes it affordable to serve ice cream to hundreds of kids on a parent council budget!
Just get
a wee little chest freezer from Home Depot ...
Oh! And Happy! Happy!
Thanks for the birthday wishes, y'all
He still has a good 8 inches on me, Sally, but I guess it's always possible I could grow some more :).
Happy birthday
and enjoy your day (and ice cream)!
Otanjoubi omedetou!
Happy Birthday!
Nice work!
I didn't get my own industrial tub of ice cream from my parents until I was 30, and I'm pretty sure it was a remainder, as the flavor was cedar chip/canned peas. Happy birthday, kidlet!
In the cuter, use a washing machine tub
Put a ton.of ice into the washing machine. Sit the food inside and close the door. Should keep things frozen for 24 hours at least.
A lot easier to get the ice water out too. Just turn it on to the end of the rinse cycle and away everything drains.
Ice cream will stay frozen through the night, phew
A very kind person in West Roxbury saw my Facebook post about this and offered a shelf in her family's large freezer for the night. I gratefully accepted her kind offer and the kidlet and I drove the Tub over tonight. In addition to thanks, I offered them as much of the ice cream as they could eat (since kidlet is not having 40 friends over).
Next time we get a Puritan tub, will definitely do the dry-ice/cooler thing (the washer idea sounds good, too, but, alas, when we needed a new washer last year, we went old school and got another one with an agitator in the middle rather than an HE one).
Newer coolers are astoundingly efficent
We finally junked one of ours that was a wedding gift (25 years old!) and bought a wheeled one that is good for harbor islands campling.
One large ice block lasted the entire weekend! The difference in insulation efficiency was amazing. I wouldn't doubt that you could keep some ice cream on dry ice in that thing for quite a while.
Social media:
the cause of and solution to all of life's problems.
You just want to play with
You just want to play with dry ice, don't you?
Any other informal names/terms for Roslindale Neighborhoods?
Any other informal/formal names/terms for Roslindale Neighborhoods?... besides
. Metropolitan Hill Neighborhood.
. Lower Washington Street Neighborhood toward Forest Hills.
. Forest Hills Neighborhood.
. Archdale Neigborhood.
. Upper Washington Street Neighborhood from Metropolitan Street/Washington Street to West Roxbury Parkway.
. Gypsy Hill Neighborhood very top of the Hill.
. Music Streets Neighborhood.
. Mount Hope Neighborhood by Mount Hope Street, American Legion Highway, and Cummins Highway.
. Up the Hill Neighborhood up Poplar Street by Beech Street.
. Longfellow Neighborhood around Fallon FIeld and Longfellow School.
. By the Golf Course Neighborhood Poplar Street near the George Wright Golf Course.
. Prospect Hill Neighborhood around Prospect and Sherwood.
https://www.reddit.com/r/boston/comments/3cx72a/any_other_informal_names...
God's Country
The place everybody else wishes they coud live in.
The Square/Village that is really a Triangle.
South Jamaica Plain
North West-Roxbury (as opposed to Northwest Roxbury)
West Roxbury's Ukraine
God's Country?
When I was a kid in the west, I always thought "God's Country" referred to empty stretches of barren land that nobody else wanted. Seems like whenever I was in that sort of place, some adult would wave their hand and say "This is God's Country".
West Village
The neighborhood group where I live (area between Belgrade, Walworth and Washington) as the West Village.
We just followed your lead,
We just followed your lead, and the manager informed us that they do have some half gallons available. We still got a year's worth of Coffee Heath, though.