If you think all there is to Santa Cruz is the beach boardwalk, you’re wrong, branch out.  Actually the boardwalk is not a first choice for a spot to spend the day down in Santa Cruz.  Of course, unless you have folks visiting from out of town who have kids. It is always fun to take the kids on the Big Dipper roller coaster or to walk out on the wharf and hear the barking animals below. Having just made that statement, let me contradict myself by telling you to check our three favorite Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk foods post!  AND, check out The Picnic Basket, a new place to grab lunch down at the Boardwalk for keepin’ it classy. It caught my eye this summer when we took our niece to get a homemade corn dog and to get jerked around for awhile on the rickety coaster.  The Picnic Basket doesn’t look like it belongs down by wharf area because it is quite tasteful looking in a retro beach kind of way, but not diner style-retro over the top.  It is owned by Penny Ice Creamery which is a great sign.  So one afternoon we finally got to stop in and get a great local El Salchichero hot dog with Farmhouse Kulture Kraut and a Santa Cruz Mountain Brew (check out their facebook page for $1 off coupon until 11/1/11 https://www.facebook.com/thepicnicbasketsc) or a Verve coffee.  They have a rotating selection from Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing, Santa Cruz Aleworks, Uncommon Brewers, Boulder Creek Brewing Company, Corallitos Brewing Company, Seabright Brewery, and Sante Adairius Rustic Ales (yes, all in Santa Cruz County!).   They let us have a taste of the local wine they serve and of course as we were quickly sipping, a train went by outside, nice touch.  You can still get Penny’s Ice Cream with a choice of about 9 flavors in the case. I love all of the local foods and drinks you can get at the Picnic Basket, seriously check out their tasty menu online and their fun coupon deals from FB.  PB is a healthy and tasty alternative, see their salad choices too. We are glad to have them around!

Kids, tell your parents you will let them go to The Picnic Basket if they take you to the Boardwalk.  It just might work!

The Picnic Basket tag-line says it all: Local • Artisan Food • Drinks • Coffee • Ice Cream

125 Beach Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95060

After frequenting great, creative ice cream shops across the country such as Jeni’s in Columbus, OH, Sweet Action in Denver, and Humphrey Slocombe in SF we are so glad to have The Penny Ice Creamery in Santa Cruz and we look forward to evolving with them.

The Penny Ice Creamery is a great addition to the very limited Santa Cruz-specific ice cream scene.  Yes, we have Dairy Queen, Cold Stone Creamery, and numerous frozen yogurt shops (I feel embarrassed for even mentioning those at all in the same article) in SC but there is really only one other ice cream shop that is worth writing home about (there is another in downtown SC that I haven’t tried yet).  This of course is the fifty-year old landmark ice cream shop near the boardwalk known as Marianne’s (Macapuno: Creamy baby coconut ice cream is a great flavor).  The Penny is a nice contrast to the famous standard Marianne’s and is completely an artisan shop, home-made and seasonal from scratch.  They currently use about 2,000 organic eggs a week and organic milk in contrast to most ice cream base which is actually almost always purchased from an outside source (there may only be one other ice creamery in CA that makes their own base as well – Sweet rose in Brentwood – don’t quote me on that).  Their flavors are more and more intriguing to me each time I stop in the shop (5 Spice with Fried Peanuts, Banana Toffee, Kiwi Sorbet).  Flavors often incorporate other great local goods such as coffee from Verve and Santa Cruz Mountain Stout.  Online and on facebook you can check out their daily menu of flavors (a flavor is around no longer than six days but usually lasts 4 days) which means they can offer creative and new concoctions all the time and then once you find one you love … let’s hope they bring it back.  They even make their own cones!  I am looking forward to some creative sundaes in the future (such as the seasonal classic Spice Tower from Graeter’s Ice Cream).

The chef and co-owner, Kendra, has been a pastry chef for ten years and worked as a Pastry Chef at Manresa in Los Gatos and Bar Tartine in SF before opening Penny Ice Creamery last year.

In addition, The Penny owners were recently in the news for being personally invited to the White House for making a video entitled “How Recovery Act boosted small biz, an ice cream case study”:

• SJ Mercury News: “Penny Ice Creamery owners take in the State of the Union speech, in person.”

For this dessert, start at least two days before you want to server it!  AND, don’t take it to a friend’s home who has a freezer powered by solar.  You need a normal to powerful freezer to freeze the dessert properly or should I say thoroughly.   So basically, I wouldn’t recommend ice cream cake, where you make the ice cream yourself for the dessert,  without a few days to prep it to make sure it’s a “solid” dessert for the party.

This is a whammy of a labor-intensive dessert because you will be making the ice cream, with your ice cream maker, and create the cake part too. However, the flavors in this dessert are worth the work because it is a unique flavor combo!  Thanks ReadyMade magazine for your creative Spice Cream Recipes!

Tips for making Ice Cream & Ice Cream Cake:

• Freeze your ice cream maker bowl at least 24 hours beforehand, if not sooner. I’ve made this mistake too many times.
• Test your ice cream maker with a simple ice cream first.  The reason for this is that there is room for error with how well your ice cream maker operates and how frozen your ice cream bowl must be to work well.  Always store the ice cream bowl in a cool area and freeze it as it is standing right side up.
• Start the dessert even a few days (2-3 days) ahead of time and freeze the ice cream overnight and the cake for a decent amount of time as well once you have loaded it with the ice cream.

Brown Sugar & Spiced Banana Ice Cream Recipe

Sweet but mellow, bananas play well with spices. Together, they turn plain vanilla into a spice-enlightened taste adventure, particularly in this delightful variation on the classic Bananas Foster.

Makes: about 1½ quarts

1 medium ripe banana
¼ c plus 1¾ c whole milk
½ c plus ½ c firmly packed brown sugar (light or dark)
1 t ground cinnamon
1 t ground cardamom
1 t ground nutmeg
? t salt
4 large egg yolks
2 c whipping cream
1 t vanilla

1. Puree the banana and ¼ cup of the milk in a food processor until smooth.

2. Combine the banana puree, the remaining 1¾ cups milk, ½ cup brown sugar, the cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, and salt in a medium-size heavy saucepan. Scald the milk mixture (heat nearly to a boil) over medium-high heat, stirring often, for 5 minutes.

3. While the milk is scalding, whisk together the egg yolks in a medium mixing bowl. Add the remaining ½ cup brown sugar and whisk until the eggs are light and fluffy. Whisking constantly, add a small amount of the hot milk to the egg mixture (to temper the eggs). Gradually whisk in the remaining hot milk.

4. Return the custard mixture to the pan and cook over medium-low heat, stirring often, until the custard is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon, about 5 minutes. Remove pan from heat and place in a bowl of ice water to quickly cool the custard. Let the custard cool, stirring often, for 5 minutes.

5. Meanwhile, combine cream and vanilla in a medium bowl. Stir in the custard mixture. Cover with plastic wrap and press wrap directly onto the surface of the custard. Refrigerate until completely chilled, at least 4 hours or overnight. The custard may be stored in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

6. Freeze the chilled custard mixture in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Transfer ice cream to an airtight container and place in the freezer for 2 to 4 hours before serving.

To Make: Banana Split Ice Cream Cake Recipe

Stick a fork into the rich brownie-like base of this updated take on a banana split. Yes, you can have your cake and lick it, too.

Makes: an 8-inch-square cake

6 oz semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
4 T (½ stick) unsalted butter
2 eggs
½ c sugar
1 T vanilla
¼ t salt
2 T all-purpose flour
1 t ground cinnamon
1 t ground coriander
3 c Brown Sugar and Spiced Banana Ice Cream (above), slightly softened

Chocolate sauce, whipped cream, candied nuts, and cherries to top

1. Preheat the oven to 300?F. Melt the chocolate and the butter in a double boiler over medium heat, stirring continually, until smooth. In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar, vanilla, and salt. Pour the melted chocolate into the egg mixture and whisk until smooth. Add the flour, cinnamon, and coriander and whisk until just combined.

2. Grease and flour an 8-inch-square baking pan. Pour the batter into the pan and bake for 35 to 40 minutes. Remove the cake from the oven and allow to cool completely.

3. Spread the ice cream evenly over the cake. Cover the cake and freeze for at least 4 hours or overnight. Remove the cake from the freezer and cut it into squares. Serve each ice cream cake square topped with chocolate sauce, whipped cream, candied nuts, and a cherry.

• Breakfast: Snooze A.M. Eatery!
• Dive Bar: Don’s Club Tavern on 6th Avenue
• Coffee: Pablo’s Coffee on 6th Avenue
• Lunch: Sputnik on Broadway
• Ice Cream: Sweet Action Ice Cream on Broadway
• Wiskey: Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey Denver Distillery
• Kaos Pizza

I went to Denver to visit my friends.  Lindsay just moved from Chicago and is now in the business of finding the best places to eat in Denver.  Chi-town has some of the best food around and so she has been looking for the comparable spots in Denver.  She has done a great job so far!

It seems, another place it isn’t cool to be from California, is Denver!  There are too many of us there and we can’t drive.  Too funny!  Being from Ohio originally, this really makes me laugh and not feel offended either but it did make me feel kind of like a Masshole.  What do you call Cali A-holes?  Watch out Texans, they don’t like your driving either.

So they took me to Snooze Eatery! Snooze is a modern diner-like breakfast and lunch spot with two locations in Denver and soon to be other new locations in other cities in CO such as Fort Collins.  Their creative Pancakes (Pineapple Upside-down Cake, Sweet Potato, Wheat’s Cherry Cobbler, and a pancake of the day) and Eggs Benedict dishes (Roasted Pork, BBQ Beef, Ratatouille, and Smokin’ Salmon)  seem to be the great edibles at Snooze.  Friends had the oversize monster Breakfast Burrito, the Burger, and two different Eggs Benedict dishes (BBQ Beef was the better than the Salmon).  I tried the Tomato Soup with grilled 3 cheese sandwich and it was great!   OK, what is the down-side of Snooze?  The wait can apparently be hours long on the weekends.

Don’s Club Tavern is a great dive bar and has been voted the best dive bar in Denver in the past.   It was definitely a better experience at happy hour time when there weren’t a ton of folks crowded in like there are on Friday or Saturday nights.  There isn’t a happy hour special so to speak but they apparently always have cheap well-drinks and beers.  Ha!  A $4 pint of New Belgium Sunshine Wheat (very tasty by the way) WAS a happy hour price for me, being a Calihole and all.  Do I get any kind of bonus points for being a NorCali-hole?

I have to mention Pablo’s Coffee on 6th Avenue because we went there everyday for four days straight and they have a great atmosphere and good coffee.  Pablo’s does not have wi-fi or internet access!  What?  This is actually a great concept and gets people to sit down and talk together rather than being isolated by technology!  This is the place that really made me aware of the friendliness of people in Denver, even though one friendly gentleman hated the hell out of San Francisco once he knew I was from NorCal.

We stopped in Sputnik on Broadway to have a casual lunch in another dive bar after shopping around on Friday.  Sputnik is a bar that also serves food and coffee.  Folks were hanging out and eating at the bar as well as sitting in the booths on their computers (Oh, wi-fi here in the bar).  We had the *MIXED FRIES *Small $3.75, Large $5 (with choice of 2 sauces- sweet habañero jam, chimichurri) and soup.

Sweet Action Ice Cream on Broadway!   Everyone seems to know this great ice cream shop in Denver.  We met the owner (super sweet and friendly) on Friday and she said they make only 1-2 gallons of ice cream per flavor and they are always making new flavors each night!  I love this!  I had the Banana Reece’s Pieces and the next day I had the Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey Brittle (from a Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey Denver Distillery).  Places don’t serve kiddie size scoops anymore so the small is the smallest you can get.  Sweet Action gives you a decent size scoop, none of this, it is a tiny artisanal (to refer to the craft of hand making food products) foods garbage and our ingredients are so premium that you can’t even afford an actual bite.

July 2011 Update on Denver:

We went to two new places to eat in Denver this past weekend.  One of them was a pizza place called Kaos Pizza.  It was really great.  They had seasonal salads such as their watermelon salad with mixed greens, goat cheese, pumpkin seeds, with a balsamic reduction as well as special featured pizzas.  The one we tried was brocolli and brie and it was so awesome! They also had $2 happy hour drafts.

Michelle, a SF foodie friend, and I were talking about this and decided that the first food maker that we can remember who mixed spices and various combinations of flavors was Vosges Haut Chocolat.   Vosges does make ice cream as well with their creative concoctions.  We are now lucky enough to live in the Bay Area where folks are constantly coming up with creative food combinations.  Michelle said she could remember lobster ice cream and corn on the cob ice cream from summers spent on the east coast.  My favorite ice cream has always been Graeters, a Cincinnati, OH original.  But now there are creative ice cream shops in every major city such as Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream (Chocolate w/ Cornflakes, Queen City Cayenne, Thai Chili) in Columbus, OH and Humphry Slocombe in SF.

Humphry Slocombe Ice Cream is sold at their shop and at a gourmet food market in SF by the scoop ($2.50 a scoop) or pint ($8).

Humphry Slocombe Creative Flavors

I tried the Morning Secret that consists of Jim Beam, flour, corn flakes, vanilla, and butter.  Boy was it buttery and the Beam was subtle!  It actually reminded me of a fancier version of a superman ice cream!  Michelle tried the Pepper-Mint Chip that was a combination of fresh chopped mint with Cubeb Pepper, and Valhrona Chocolate Chips.  She said that the Pepper-Mint Chip was surprisingly a great combination that she expected to fail, but it just didn’t!

Shop:
2790 Harrison St
San Francisco, CA 94110