Enjoy a Blended Ice Cream Float For Labor Day
Plus, some words on the price of pasta in L.A. (it's too expensive)
Heyo!
A short edition of The Move today. That’s because I spent most of my effort on Tuesday writing about restaurants that I don’t like. It doesn’t please me to write negatively about things, but when I do, I like to read, and re-read, and edit to make sure the words come off as well as they can. Far less thought goes into describing food as “delicious'“ and “amazing” than it does calling a restaurant a “mall kiosk at the Glendale Galleria that sells queso.”
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My article for The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette finally came out. It’s about the importance of Lebanese and Syrian immigrants in my hometown of New Castle, Pennsylvania, and how they shaped the food culture here. Specifically, how kibbeh found its way onto a Pittsburgh salad. Here’s an excerpt I love from the article. I feel like it captures my complicated, worn out Rust Belt hometown in a positive light:
Syrian and Lebanese settlement started in New Castle around 1900, when steel and tin production brought immigrants from all over the world to Western Pennsylvania. By 1940, New Castle’s Levant community was well-developed, and decades later, there remains a seamless integration of Syrian and Lebanese cuisine into local culture.
Local Greek Orthodox churches bake and sell Syrian-style bread, and the Lebanese garlic sauce known as toum has a place among the condiments on most picnic tables during the summer. Bars and restaurants all over New Castle serve fried kibbeh and lamb sandwiches with cold drafts of Yuengling. And at Cascade Park, a once-thriving theme park in the early 1900s that now sits dilapidated, families pick wild grape leaves and stuff them into plastic shopping bags to make dolmades at home.
Even at the six-pack to-go store and restaurant Mister B’s, a bright neon sign in the window advertises “Lamb & Smelts.”
Included in the article is a recipe for fried kibbeh, which is a modification of my Grandmother’s hand written words. Articles like this remind me why I became a food writer in a first place; I now feel more connected to my family and my community. It’s a good feeling—doing work that’s meaningful to you.
Anyways, *burp*
Summer’s almost over. Celebrate with an ice cream float, but hold up! You should blend it.
I recently wrote about Boston Coolers, which are a Detroit invention and a staple within the city. The Boston Cooler is a complicated name that has to do with Dr. Vernor and Boston Boulevard in Detroit, but the execution of this frozen ginger ale shake is refreshingly simple: Vernor’s ginger ale and vanilla ice cream (preferably Stroh’s) blended together and served in a cup with a straw. Just like a milkshake.
But, is this a milkshake? There’s no milk being blended. Is it a float? I know that a float implies some sort of buoyancy, but I would argue that any frozen ice cream drink made with pop is inherently a float. Going forward, I will simply call this style of drink a blended float.
Back to the Boston Cooler—it just makes a whole lot of sense. By blending the ice cream and pop together, you get a creamier texture and more even flavor. In the aforementioned article for The Takeout, I tested a Boston Cooler made without blending (that is, made with scoops of ice cream like a traditional float), and it was simply worse. Getting spoonfuls of ginger ale, even Vernor’s, without ice cream is an unpleasant experience that feels too much like taking actual medicine. A Boston Cooler must be blended to be a true Boston Cooler. But, why don’t we always apply this method to our floats? Wouldn’t they inherently taste better if the ingredients mingled fully in a blender first?
To test this idea, I blended together a few float combinations, and the results were wonderful.
I used Kutztown Soda Works, which is a dope Pennsylvania company that makes old school flavors of pop. Orange cream soda blended with vanilla ice cream created a thick, extra creamy blend that tasted just like a creamsicle only more decadent. Man, it was smooth and refreshing. The birch beer, which has a subdued, peppery and minty flavor, really benefited from the addition of blended ice cream, though. On its own, birch beer is a bit too antiquated of a flavor. But with a high butterfat vanilla ice cream, the taste was very much like a classic cream soda.
Most recipes for a Boston Cooler call for three scoops of ice cream to 12 fluid ounces of ginger ale. I have found that the more ice cream, though, the better. Use this same ratio for any blended float, but make sure you get heaping spoonfuls of ice cream, too.
There’s something awesomely refreshing about the smooth, homogenous flavor of ice cream and soda pop. I haven’t made a float in a long, long time, but now that I’ve discovered the joys of blending this classic pairing, it’s going to happen a lot more often. It’ll be in the 90s this Labor Day weekend in Detroit and Pennsylvania. The perfect time to try it out.
And with only a few more weeks left of Summer, I’ve got a few more blended ice cream floats in me. I’m thinking I’ll blend some grape soda to make a purple cow next. Maybe Boylan’s? Open to any grape soda suggestions. Let me know if you have any in the comments.
*burp*
What is Pasta Worth?
I often hear people complain about the price of pasta. Personally, I try not to spend more than $25 on a pasta dish when I’m out, but that’s nearly impossible these days. Especially in Los Angeles, where if you want good pasta, you’re going to pay. A lot.
Over at Funke, apparently he’s charging $50 for agnolotti and $48 for a tagliatelle bolognese. I don’t care how good the pasta is. That shit is absurd, man. Pasta Grannies would never. I haven’t been to Mother Wolf, either, but $32 for puttanesca also seems a tad steep (edit: very fucking steep). At what point is the art of handmade pasta also pricing out regular people who can enjoy it?
Cento charges $26 for their flagship beet spaghetti, which is vibrant with color, but I’m not quite sure the flavor is worth the price tag. If I’m going to shell out $25 for experimental pasta, it better be something with raucous flavor, like Diego Argoti’s broccoli beef ravioli over at Poltergeist.
I love the pasta at Union in Pasadena, but they also charge $25 for a traditional cacio e Pepe (ugh, there’s two ingredients and one of them is pepper?), and an even more outrageous $33 for spaghetti and meatballs. These are Postmates prices, which could differ from the price in the restaurant itself, but still.
Ceci’s, meanwhile, charges $16 and $17 for their lasagnas which is incredible. Filling, flavorful, and made with expertise and love. Francesco makes perfect lasagna, and the price is wholly affordable.
And as mentioned on Tuesday’s edition of The Move, Sunday Gravy is also very affordable. Most dishes hover around $15 and provide enough pasta for a full meal. A steal in the modern Los Angeles pasta scene.
Personally, I’m with Sunday Gravy and Ceci’s. And I bet you are, too. Spending $30 for pasta (added tip) just isn’t rational, man. These days, I always charge under $20. When people say that Italian food is overpriced and many Asian noodle dishes are undervalued, they have a point, and it’s not fair. I’m much more satisfied by a $15 steel bowl of cold bibim-naengmyeon at Ham Hung than I am the stupid-fucking-turkey-sausage-$23-orecchiette at Jones.
However, I do reserve the right to charge up to $20 for pasta. Which, even that price, friends have taken to busting my balls. So, I thought I’d address why I came up with that number. Why don’t I charge $13 or $14? Really, it’s two reasons, and the most important one is this…
Pasta is a pain in the ass to make and I hate it.
Plain and simple. I sell a lot of orecchiette—it’s my favorite pasta and now a lot of yours, too. But, orecchiette takes nearly an hour for me to thumb out a measly five orders. Each orecchiette is made tediously by hand. Every piece is a unique impression. That’s what I love about them, and I’m committed to putting in that work each and every time. When you sell food, it needs to wow people. That wow factor is usually the result of some hard work.
Secondly, I give you a lot of pasta. Most restaurants portion their pasta at 3-4 ounces, uncooked. I portion mine at 5.5-6 ounces. It’s a lot of pasta. The final weight, depending on sauce, reaches between 13-14 ounces. That’s nearly an entire pound of food. I want these dinners to fill you up. That’s why I charge that I do. These are pasta dinners for people who are hungry.
My goal is to always sell pasta dinners under $20. Living between $16-$18 per dish is a great place for both me and my customers. It means I get to make some extra money and you get to leave feeling like you’ve experienced some top notch pasta, but also feeling full.
For what it’s worth, I worked almost 20 hours in my brother’s restaurant last week doing dishes, making pasta, sauce, and the like. And I didn’t eclipse $300 doing that work. It’s not like I’m over here hand over fist making a killing. I’m just side-hustling, trying to make something I love accessible and practical for everybody. And I hope to continue providing affordable, hand made pasta to people no matter where I live. For the time being, I’ll be at Sia’s Garden Grown in Pittsburgh every other Sunday. Follow my Instagram for updates on that.
With that in mind, I hope everybody has a wonderful Labor Day weekend! I’ll be in Detroit visiting my girlfriend, though I think I’m going to miss the Hamtramck Labor Day Festival, which looks absolutely insane. Getting drunk and throwing water balloons at race karts? Fuck. Maybe next year.
Anyway, thanks for reading The Move!
*burp*
Yeeeee Haw! Thanks for reading The Move. I technically don’t have a home at the moment, but you can expect continuing coverage in Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Detroit, Philadelphia, Chicago, New York, and more!
I like to think of the world as my own personal hoagie to be devoured messily. Lettuce on my pants, that sort of thing.
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