Ice Cream

THE RESTAURANTS and merchants of Rittenhouse Row are gathering again on Walnut Street this Saturday, and that means about 50,000 area residents and guests will be joining them for one of Center City's largest street fairs. The Rittenhouse Row Spring Festival will close Walnut from Broad to 19th streets (from noon until 5 p.m.) and feature food, fashion, entertainment and fun for children. It's big. It's crowded. It's fun. And this year there's a lot of new stuff. * Dunkin' Donuts will be giving out free iced coffee on the 1400 block of Walnut.

BRIGANTINE, N.J. - People who sit on the beaches of Ventnor, Wildwood, and Atlantic City - where the ice cream man will put his box down and hand over a banana Fudge Bomb without your even moving, except to find the money - might be shocked to learn that in Brigantine, people lack this fundamental Jersey Shore right. And that, for the most part, they do not care. But that, possibly as early as next week, when the City Council is scheduled to vote on a seven-page ice cream ordinance 15 years in the making, they could at last be granted the right of beach ice-cream sales.

If they had stuck a thermometer into the asphalt in front of Duffer's that afternoon, the mercury would have probably burst through the cap. An old basketball buddy had touted Duffer's as the best ice cream palace at the Shore, bar none, and we were certainly not there to prove him wrong. Sure enough, Duffer's (Hildreth and Pacific avenues, Wildwood, 609-729-1817) didn't disappoint. Duffer's, with its adjacent miniature golf course and game arcade, goes for the old-timey feel - Tiffany-style lamps, white-shirted waiters, goofily named sundaes.

It would be nice, at least from the standpoint of girth-control, to be able to unreel some spiel about how we should return to the good old days when ice cream was a rare treat, a dish for special occasions and a special occasion in itself. Goodness knows there's enough nostalgic writing about families' gathering 'round the churn, getting to lick the dasher, etc., to provide plenty of support. Unfortunately, it just ain't true. Ice cream has not just been enjoyed, but enjoyed rather routinely, for 150 years.

BRIGANTINE, N.J. - People who sit on the beaches of Ventnor, Wildwood, and Atlantic City - where the ice cream man will put his box down and hand over a banana Fudge Bomb without your even moving, except to find the money - might be shocked to learn that in Brigantine, people lack this fundamental Jersey Shore right. And that, for the most part, they do not care. But that, possibly as early as next week, when the City Council is scheduled to vote on a seven-page ice cream ordinance 15 years in the making, they could at last be granted the right of beach ice-cream sales.

On a spring day in 1990, Rockwell "Rock" M. Groves was eliminated. To trim the budget, SPS Technologies Inc., cut his high-powered, $120,000- plus job as vice president of industrial relations. When he got the form letter, Groves, 58, read it eight times - even though he already knew what it said. He had written it. SPS, a maker of airplane parts in Newtown, had begun downsizing after a drop in business. Groves had led the way as architect of the layoffs. Then he became the target.

Once Upon a Porch was an ice-cream parlor at Head House Square. It served wonderful ice cream, and people stood in line with their youngsters just to get a taste. But, unfortunately, Once Upon a Porch didn't live happily ever after. In its place, a new ice-cream parlor evolved. Which was good. Because if you felt like getting in some cool, creamy licks, you could now venture down to Head House Square and get some at Any Thyme. Alas, the new place didn't live happily ever after either.

If you're in the makeover mood and searching for ways to jazz up a family room, here's the scoop: Featured in Barry S. Slosberg Inc.'s gallery auction Sunday are nearly 100 lots of vintage ice-cream parlor memorabilia. They include stools, chairs, tables, a soda-fountain countertop, and a complete booth with two benches, plus signs for such brands as Dolly Madison, Hershey's and Abbotts; blenders, dispensers, and, of course, vintage scoops, a popular collectible. The memorabilia comes from three main consignors, says Slosberg associate Eric Cohen, "the bulk of it . . . from a guy who had set up a little ice-cream parlor in his basement.

Everybody loves ice cream. But this is about people who are passionate about ice cream. "Do you know what it is to have Bassett's French vanilla ice cream with jimmies on top and covered with real whipped cream?" a heart patient fantasized, struggling against the urge to cheat on his doctor's orders. "Believe me, if you have to have a last meal, you couldn't do better. " And for these passionate people, as the Dove Bar proved a couple of years ago, money is no object. Ice cream is a "feel-good" food, and while manufacturers are only too glad to put a price on feeling good, certainly no real ice-cream lover could.

The Yardley mother had been sitting on the steps of her favorite ice-cream parlor, eating her cone and plotting. "I plan to be there at least once a week before it closes," she said later. "I'm just buying things and putting them in the freezer and hoping" that all that accumulated ice cream lasts and lasts and lasts. When the Goodnoe Farm Dairy Bar closes forever - at 10 p.m. on Labor Day - Patti Smialkowski hopes she will have enough ice cream banked in her freezer so that the parlor will not be a memory.

IT'S NOT EASY to pull the plug on a household appliance. In my childhood, we had a Kelvinator refrigerator that was part of the family for 20 years. At least. Wasn't fancy, ran noisy but was reliable as hell. It's probably still running somewhere. So excuse Gizmo Guy for hesitating when a repair man told me that my 15-year-old, 25-cubic-foot Frigidaire Gallery side-by-side was "overdue for replacement. " The water and ice dispenser was leaking - the most vulnerable element of any refrigerator and good reason to invest in a warranty.

MOST PEOPLE think of ice cream as a treat, something to be enjoyed once in a while. But Cedar Park resident Morgan Andrews readily admits that he indulges a bit more often. "I limit myself to once a day," Andrews reasoned. The culprit is Little Baby's Ice Cream, the handmade premium ice-cream company, which opened a new location on Catharine Street near 49th less than two weeks ago. The company features an assortment of wild and daring flavors - including pizza and chocolate teriyaki - but also offers vegan and nondairy options.

It's the "trucker's" moment in Philadelphia's food world now - especially when it comes to lunch. That's when some of the area's most exciting new food options are making the scene, rolling in on four wheels with a griddle full of creativity and an entrepreneurial dream. Channeling a Shane Victorino craving for Super Spam musubi? Check. Tiny Poi Dog at Temple University is your new Hawaiian snack shrine. In need of stunningly rich peanut butter ice cream sandwiched between double chocolate chip cookies?

To say PIFA's Street Fair takes up six blocks of South Broad Street - from Chestnut just past Lombard - is to grossly understate the scope of the arts festival's open-air finale. The event, intended to celebrate and encapsulate a month of citywide shows, ends up doing more than just that. Sure, there will be variations on the festival's time machine theme: a dinosaur petting zoo (with a life-size T-Rex), a human fountain, acrobats overhead, medieval knights, postapocalyptic stilt walkers, a ton of live, global music, and French welders working on time machines of their own. But there will also be a giant Ferris wheel and Spanish galleon ride.

John Reece hasn't figured out a way to deliver his latest ice cream creations directly through the Internet, so he relies on Facebook to give his customers a taste. "Beautiful day here in the Philly area," Reece wrote this fall on the page he has created for his Exton and West Chester shops. "Time to enjoy some Scooped Ice Cream. Our new flavors in stock: Pistachio, Mocha Toffee, Pumpkin Pie. " Through the computer screen, Reece has the ability to make customers feel as if they're enjoying a free waffle cone on the front stoop of Scooped, his homemade ice cream, gelato and sorbet business - even before they've left the house.

R YAN BERLEY, 36, and Eric Berley, 32, of Lansdowne and Swarthmore, respectively, own Shane Confectionery in Old City. The brothers, who also run nearby ice-cream parlor Franklin Fountain, acquired the oldest U.S. candy business in 2010 and spent 18 months restoring the faded store at 110 Market St. It reopened in December 2011. We spoke with Ryan. Q: When you bought Shane, what did you decide to keep? A: The curved-glass entry windows were broken and were restored. The interior: We kept everything pre-1940, including a 1910 cash register.

BANANA bread. Gumbo. Hot browns. Shellfish. Rice. Citrus. No, this isn't a rundown of a culinarily gifted fraternity's refrigerator contents. It's just a few of the ingredients and dishes that have inspired intra-staff cooking duels at Sbraga, where chef-sanctioned battles keep the minds as sharp as the knives. Kevin Sbraga, who opened at Broad and Pine in late 2011, knows about creating on the fly. He won season seven of Bravo's "Top Chef" by adapting to every bizarre challenge thrown his way, from developing a plate inspired by the phrase "bring home the bacon" to crafting a dish that could be eaten by astronauts in zero gravity (seriously)

It was a little past 8 one morning last month when Michael Strange settled down at the laptop in his living room in Philadelphia's Brewerytown section, and got on the line to Beijing. His conference call would stretch into a Skype marathon - three hours and change. Strange is the fifth-generation owner of Bassetts Ice Cream, the Philadelphia stalwart (est. 1861), scooping from the first days of the Reading Terminal Market, and a wholesaler of those iconic, blue-and-white pints, America's oldest - if still distinctly regional - ice cream brand.

FOLLOWING in the creamy tradition of the "SNL" "Schweddy Balls," Stephen Colbert's "AmeriCone Dream" and Jimmy Fallon's "Late Night Snack," Ben & Jerry's will commemorate the end of "30 Rock" with a new ice-cream flavor, rumored to be tied to Tina Fey's character, Liz Lemon. Maybe "Liz Lemon Meringue"? Or might they go in another direction with: "Kenneth's Possum Crunch"? "Tracy Leches"? "Jack and the Vanilla Bean Stalk"? "Chocolate-Peanut Butter Toofer"? The flavor will be in Ben & Jerry's ice-cream shops next month and available in still-16-ounce pints soon thereafter.

A Camden County company will pay $34,200 in back wages to 55 workers and $48,000 in civil penalties after violating of the federal Immigration and Nationality Act, the U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division said Monday. Popsy Pop LLC in Somerdale recruited workers from Eastern Europe, Central and South America and the Caribbean to drive trucks and sell ice cream throughout New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware. The law allows employers to temporarily hire nonimmigrant workers to perform nonagricultural labor or services.