On June 20, the U.S. Postal Service will roll out Frozen Treats, the first ever scratch-and-sniff stamps. Artist Margaret Berg of Santa Monica, California created the watercolored illustrations of ice pops featured on these special First-Class Mail Forever postage stamps.

The stamps feature illustrations of frosty, colorful, icy pops on a stick. Today, Americans love cool, refreshing ice pops on a hot summer day. The tasty, sweet confections come in a variety of shapes and flavors. Ice pops are made by large manufacturers, home cooks and artisanal shops. In recent years, frozen treats containing fresh fruit such as kiwi, watermelon, blueberries, oranges and strawberries have become more common. In addition, flavors such as chocolate, root beer and cola are also popular. Some frozen treats even have two sticks, making them perfect for sharing.

The stamps are available for pre-order now. Read the rest

Janelle Shane (previously) is a delightful AI researcher who likes to use machine learning systems to produce absurd, inhuman outputs, such as a list of AI-created notional ice-cream flavors generated by merging a list of real ice-cream flavors with a list of metal band names and pressing "go." Read the rest

In a real life case of "We can pickle that," New York City's Lucky Pickle Dumpling Co. has pickled... ice cream. Well, sort of, they made pickle-flavored soft serve.

This pickle ice cream situation kinda tastes like that bath and body works cucumber lotion from the 90s, but I still like it?

A post shared by Ariel Knutson (@arielknutson) on May 12, 2018 at 8:30am PDT

It sells for $5/serving.

Previously: Pickle juice slushies are coming to Sonic Drive-In this summer

(Food and Wine)

pickle image via Wikipedia Read the rest

It sounds like a joke but this is not a joke. For a limited time, east coast ice cream brand Friendly's is offering a "Nor'easter Pothole" flavor in the frozen food aisle, a regional nod to the destruction those storms cause on the roads.

Apparently potholes taste like "chocolate ice cream with black tar fudge creme cookie gravel and chocolate asphalt chips."

(NJ.com) Read the rest

West coast ice creamery Salt & Straw isn't encouraging anyone to give up their Thanksgiving day meal, but they are making a version that is cold and creamy to ingest.

For the month of November, you can order their five-pint "Thanksgiving Dinner of Ice Cream Series," as follows (descriptions via Los Angeles Magazine):

-- Sweet Potato Casserole with Maple Pecans ("Sweet potatoes are roasted down and mixed with cream and sugar to make a sweet, spicy, sticky ice cream. Then Oregon pecans are mixed and caramelized with maple sugar. It is then of course topped off with hand-churned ribbons of Salt & Straw’s own delicious homemade gooey maple fluff.")

-- Buttered Mashed Potatoes & Gravy ("Salt & Straw has made over 600 different flavors of ice cream, and this is hands-down the most savory one ever served. Salt & Straw makes a potato- flavored ice cream, thanks to the real potatoes boiled down until the starch turns to sugar, and then stirs in their own homemade gravy fudge made from two mashed-up recipes, pun very much intended.")

-- Apple Cranberry Stuffing

-- Salted Caramel Thanksgiving Turkey ("Turkey stock is cooked and mixed with sugar, spices and onions down until it bubbles into a caramel, which creates the base of the salted caramel ice cream. And Salt & Straw also roasts turkey skin until it’s crispy and then candy-coat it and mix bits of that in, too.")

-- Spiced Goat Cheese & Pumpkin Pie ("It starts with goat-cheese ice cream, which is sprinkled with pumpkin pie spices, but the generous helping of mashed pumpkin folded and swirled in really steals the show.")

All five pints are available now for $65 plus shipping. Read the rest

First they came for the drumming jobs, now the robots are honing in on our ice cream serving gigs, as evidenced by this video by MrEricSir.

Outside of Bi-Rite Creamery on Sunday, a mysterious headless robot torso with no (known) name was found scooping up free ice cream.

MrEricSir writes:

A guy waving around a pair of HTC Vive controllers caused the two arms to scoop up ice cream and sprinkles...

The robot did seem to have a camera in its “head,” and I noticed there was an unused Vive virtual reality headset sitting on the table. The desktop PC controlling everything had a high-end GeForce GTX graphics card glowing from under the case’s grill which seemed capable of driving the headset. When I asked the operator if the VR headset worked with this contraption he confirmed that it does, though he said it’s difficult to see what he’s doing while wearing the headset.

I vote we anthropomorphize this robot as soon as possible. At the very least, Let's put a mannequin head on Icecream McIcecreamface.

(SFist)

Thanks, Kent Barnes! Read the rest

Little Baby's Ice Cream in Philadelphia is known for their oddly-flavored ice cream (and, their bizarro ads) but they've outdone themselves with their latest icy offering. Since mid-June, the frozen dessert purveyor has been serving up PIZZA ICE CREAM. What makes it pizza-y? Tomato, basil, oregano, salt and garlic. For some people, that just isn't enough pizza pie, so they've taken upon themselves to plop a scoop on top of a hot slice of pizza.

(USAToday)

Previously, the pizza lovers edition: Pizza slice-shaped bags for, well, your slices of pizza Read the rest

HAPPY MUTANTS DAY OF ICE CREAM

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BY THE PUBLISHER OF BOING BOING, A DIRECTORY OF WONDERFUL THINGS

A PROCLAMATION

A notional pride spins the Happy Mutant soul and congests the Happy Mutant heart. We are people, united by a common path of evolution. Beyond that, we have art. Some, maybe not even that.

Ice cream is a treat for many Happy Mutants, and to serve that ice cream we must have a scoop, or a large yet very strong spoon. Bowls would also help, cones optional. Read the rest

What would you do? Not much if you are my daughter. She offered me the remaining half of hers, not enjoying her few bites. I bought the Heath Bar variety. Read the rest

So tragic yet I... can't... look... away.

Read the rest

Brenham, Texas-based BlueBell Creameries has launched a new "Camo 'n Cream" camouflage ice cream. It's a combo, containing pistachio almond, milk chocolate and cream cheese flavors. The packaging features woodland pattern camouflage which I guess makes sense given the ice cream was launched on the first day of dove hunting season in texas. Yum?

(Houston Chronicle) Read the rest

Macro Room grabbed a bunch of frozen treats and filmed extreme closeups as they melted. The melting patterns create beautiful and sometimes surprising delights. Read the rest

The New York Times' feature about ice cream trucks in the city is packed with fantastic details and quotes from those who operate "bell-jingling fleets of pleasure craft festooned with pictures of perfectly swirled desserts and beaming children." It's brutal out there, and Mister Softee has just been muscled out of Midtown.

In 2012, a frozen yogurt vendor said that a Softee duo snapped his brakes with a crowbar, and the founder of the Van Leeuwen ice cream company said he had gotten death threats from Softee drivers. (A lawyer for Mister Softee, Jeffrey Zucker, said that while he had not heard about the 2012 allegations, “a franchisee could lose his or her Mister Softee franchise for engaging in that type of criminal activity.”)

“Let me tell you about this business,” Adam Vega, a thickly muscled, heavily tattooed Mister Softee man who works the upper reaches of the Upper East Side and East Harlem, said on Wednesday. “Every truck has a bat inside.”

If you're surprised that such a light-hearted product could result in such a ruthless, cutthroat business, enjoy the great Ice Cream Wars of Glasgow. Read the rest

MSNBC caught up with Ben "and Jerry's" Cohen outside a rally for Donald Trump in Burlington, VT, home state to Ben and Jerry's and headquarters for the Bernie Sanders campaign. Read the rest

“Cooper and Daisy go through the drive up window at Mcdonalds.” Not cool, Cooper. Not cool. Read the rest

This sidewalk sweets vendor in Istanbul loves playing tricks on customers. Watch one of them turn the tables on him.

Scientists at the Universities of Dundee and Edinburgh are toiling in their laboratories to create ice cream that stays firm for a long time even in hot weather. The secret ingredient is a naturally occurring protein produced by a bacteria. This protein sticks to fat droplets and air bubbles, binding them with the water so that the ice cream remains rigid. The Telegraph reports that the protein can also "prevent gritty ice crystals from forming, ensuring a fine, smooth texture more reminiscent of luxury ice creams." Read the rest