Rockford Michigan – Every year about this time the folks around Rockford Michigan gather together to worship everying ice.  This years festival will be held at the town square.  There will be many chilly activities to occupy your time like mini ice golf, and ice carving, but the main event this year is the world record ice cream sundae attempt.

The attempt at “The Worlds Largest Continuous Ice Cream Sundae Bar” will hopefully enter the record books at about 12pm on Saturday the 14th of January and believe me – there will be plenty of ice cream sundaes to go around after the official announcement.

For more information on the festival and its events, go to www.rockfordicefestival.com

Ambala India – Researchers at the  M.M. College of Dental Sciences and Research in India have found that eating probiotic ice cream can increase dental health.

The findings could lead to increased usage of dairy foods, which are ideal vehicles for probiotic bacteria, as a means of preventing caries colonization in children, according to the study authors, from Dr. HS Judge Institute of Dental Sciences and Hospital, M.M. College of Dental Sciences and Research, and All India Institute of Medical Sciences.

Apparantly ice cream and other probiotic frozen desserts are an exceptional carrier for healthy bacteria to penetrate and provide health to the oral region. For much more technical information that I am able to espouse – click HERE

Melbourne Australia – While the rest of us hunker down for the sleet, snow and general miserable weather in the northern hemisphere, its an ice cream paradise in Australia.  Record heat waves reaching 104 and above are casuing some ice cream and frozen dessert shops to run out of ice cream.

Fritz Gelato owner Andrew Johnston said trade was “ridiculous” over the new year long weekend, with the mercury soaring to 40C on Monday and reaching almost 30C yesterday afternoon.  “On a hot summer’s night we do 70 times more sales than on a cold windy day,” Mr Johnston said.  “We ran out of chocolate, vanilla, blood orange, lemon, a bunch of sorbets. We were totally cleaned out yesterday and pretty much the same the day before.”

Mr Johnston said he was starting work at 5am to fuel the demand for ice-cream, which saw his Queenscliff store order two 500-litre batches over two days.  He said he was extending trading hours up to 11.30pm to feed customers.  St Kilda Fritz Gelato ice-cream seller Adam Blau said the lines were 10-deep and flowing on to the pavement.

“The higher it gets above 30C the more people we get out here,” Mr Blau said.  For more on this story click HERE

Tacoma Washington -   Attention all ice cream lovers – Be on the look out for a stolen Cushman Ice Cream scooter that was stolen from Laurie Meade’s Parkland home on Christmas night.  Thieves not only took the vehicle but it was also loaded with ice cream novelties.

Meade, 55, peddles ice cream bars and other frozen treats from the three-wheeled vehicle to supplement her federal disability payments, which she uses to support herself and three of her children.

“I just don’t know what we’re going to do if we don’t get it back,” Meade said this week.
Someone stole the vehicle late Christmas night or early Monday from the driveway of her home in the 10400 block of Sheridan Avenue South, she said.

“I went out the day after Christmas to run an errand and it wasn’t there,” Meade said.

Read more here: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2011/12/30/1964062/christmas-night-ice-cream-truck.html#storylink=cpy

Sacramento California – 2 rock weilding bandits approached an ice cream truck in suburban sacramento today and threatened the driver for cash.

Believe it or not the 2 crooks actually obtained a small amount of cash before hurling the igneous weapon at the driver who sustained minor injuries. The Sacramento Police attended, located one of the offenders who will be breaking rocks for the next 12 months in a state rock field.

Fort Wayne Indiana – Its a Rocky Road down Interstate 69 in Fort Wayne as 40,000 pounds of Edys Ice Cream explode onto the highway as two trucks collide at 4pm yesterday. 

The Journal Gazette reports the spill happened about 4 p.m. Friday and was expected to be totally cleaned up by late Friday. One southbound lane remained open initially, then the other was re-opened an hour later.

 Police say the truck was trying to enter the interstate from a ramp when it tipped.

 According to the Journal Gazette, “The crash itself did not cause ice cream to spill onto the interstate. But when two large tow trucks used cables to drag the rig closer to the shoulder, hundreds of 1.5-quart containers – the kind you’d see in a grocery store – came out of the top of the trailer, which had cracked open.”

 Flavors included various types of vanilla, and caramel praline crunch. It was all Edy’s ice cream and frozen yogurt.

For more on the story – read HERE

The Pampered Chef company today recalled their line of ice cream scoopers.  These scoopers, like most, have liquid in the handle to help defrost the scooper whiled serving up some family fun.

Apparently, this liquid is creating a bit of pressure and ” When the liquid-filled ice cream scoop is exposed to warm water, the cap and seal at the end of the scoop handle can fly off with substantial force, posing an impact injury hazard to nearby consumers”.  Thats a bit of a dampner on the festivities for the evening.

For full details of the the recall read HERE

Salt Lake City Utah – A woman in Utah, upset over the prices that an ice cream van driver charged her local children, sprayed cleaning fluid in the vendors face.

Police say the female driver of an ice cream van was selling frozen treats at the Bridgeside Landing Apartments in Taylorsville on Aug. 7 when a woman with a towel in one hand and a spray bottle in the other approached and ordered the woman to leave. 

When the ice cream vendor wouldn’t leave, the woman, Andrea F. Chavez, 65, sprayed the van’s windows and then sprayed the woman “multiple times in the face,” according to charges filed Monday in 3rd District Court.

The spray got into the driver’s eyes, causing them to burn. She was treated at the scene and the taken to University Hospital. Police say the driver was sprayed with Mean Green, an industrial-strength cleaner and degreaser.  For more information on this story click HERE

British Fitness Gurus Nicki Waterman and Amanda Russell have come up with a cracker fitness and weightloss plan for 2012. 

Prawns, Ice Cream and Skipping. Sounds great to me (except for the skipping part)  When all of mankind is busting at the seams from some form of over gorging at the holidays, the Brits have come up with some simple steps to ensure a happy and healthy 2012. Here are some suggestions:

TRENDY chefs love prawn cocktails, iceberg lettuce and Black Forest gateau. Nutrition’s answer to the retro food renaissance is the F-Plan Diet. It’s 1980s but it’s safe, works and people eating an extra three daily servings of whole grain foods are 17 per cent less likely to develop colorectal cancer.

IT’S hard to imagine ice cream being good for you, until now. Scientists in India have just found that adding two probiotics to ice cream (B. lactis and L. streptococcus), can lower levels of mouth bacteria, which contribute to tooth decay. Just the excuse we all needed.

For more easily justifiable diet solutions, read the whole story here

The author of a new cook book is unashamedly boasting that it is entirely possible to make a tasty treat out of any part of an animal. Toronto-based Jennifer McLagan is an Australian-born chef, food stylist, journalist and award-winning author of Bones and Fat.  Her latest offering, “Odd Bits – How to Cook the rest of the Animal” offers just that.

She is just as comfortable with other unfashionable dishes, including brain fritters, chocolate blood ice cream and crispy testicles.

Nose-to-tail eating is not for the faint of heart, but McLagan appeals to meat lovers’ moral goodness by promoting respect for the whole animal, including the tasty odds and ends that are often discarded or destined for dog food.

Asked if she thinks some chefs have pushed the nose-to-tail philosophy too far, McLagan believes they have.

She said: ‘I don’t want it to be like how can we shock people the most by serving them something, and I’ve had a couple meals like that cooked by proponents of this type of cooking and it’s like more about shocking you than making it taste good.