DECEMBER '10 SCOOP

It is precisely at this time of year that the seam between the world of drab and kicked-around materiality and the world of sacral luminosity is worn clean-through. While the cold sharp of Winter pinches outwardness, the warmth of life retreats to inwardness. Beings clump together from the greatest of distances, be they family or strangers, to be near the radiance of each others’ warmth and, perhaps, to fan the collected embers of their innermost selves. And through this spontaneous kindliness, the world becomes magical. More notice is taken, if only for fleeting instances, to the largeness of small miracles-- the scent of burning firewood tumbling from chimney tops in out-blown ruffles, the wheeling night sky shimmering with wish-entrusted stars too plentiful to count, the seasonal rise of generosity towards sick children and lonesome elderly. It is with this suffused sense of magic and the transformation towards better things that we invite you, once more, to stop by The Franklin Fountain. For us, this season opens up a sort of spiritual valve within us to flood your life and your customer experience with the most cheer, inventiveness, and love that we have to offer.

While many burrow into hibernation’s slumber this time of year, our “Clear Toy Candies” are coming out of theirs. WHYY’s newly launched “Newsworks” online journalism site has cast a lovely piece on how we make our Clear Toy Candy, along with a Youtube’d photo-essay on the subject. Ryan Berley is interviewed in our wonderful new kitchen space at Shane Candies while our beloved pastry chef Davina Soondrum and her sensational assistant Hannah Taylor create another beautiful batch of sugar candies from century-old moulds.
You can find the piece here:
http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/art-entertainment-sports/item/7544-17pccandy


Also on the Shane Candies site, Eric Berley was engaged in another historic to-do. It was at that very vicinity at 110 Market Street that Robert Aitken, a bookseller and printer who founded The Pennsylvania Magazine, printed America’s first English-language Bible in 1782. Eric, along with Bible historians, some clergymen, and former Philadelphia mayor Reverend W. Wilson Goode, assembled in the unveiled and restored Shane store front to read select passages from Aitken’s Bible to commemorate Public Bible Reading Day. The event was filmed by television stations and recorded on radio broadcasts, and for those assembled there that day and for many listening at home the commemoration was both significant and moving.

Fresh Cinnamon and Egg Nogg Ice Creams have returned for the season. We recommend them with one of our drool-producing homemade fruit pies. Additionally, we have brought back “Hot” Chocolate Ice cream, which is spiced with cinnamon, cayenne, and mombasa peppers. This flavor bears an Aztec heat, and is meant for only fireproof palates. Also, we have introduced our “Cardamom Chai” flavor, which is a collaborative effort-- the positively wonderful folks at Philadelphia’s “The Random Tea Room & Curiosity Shop” have graced us with a fine stock of their winning Chai Tea recipe, which we placed in a vanilla-based ice cream. The flavor is jungled with Assamese tea leaf grown by the banks of the Himalaya-bordered Brahmaputra river, crushed cardamom pods, ginger root, dried clove flower, crushed saffron crocus stigmas, and powdered cinnamon bark. This complicated but beautiful flavor is being used in our “Mt. Caramel” Sundae, which is an acclivous crag of Vanilla and Cardamom Chai ice cream drenched in a divine douse of homemade caramel sauce, spilling into an altar trench set with crumbled gingerbread, strewn with malt powder ash, and topped with a smoky tuft of whipped cream rising into the heavens. Test yourself and try one!

Well, that about does it for this go-around. We hope that you all have a lovely holiday season.
May you have light in darkness and warmth in cold.
May you find both in those around you and in your self.
The Franklin Fountain.

P.S.- We thought we’d leave you with a bit of sweetness:

THE CLEAR TOY CANDIES
The season permits with its cold frigid clasp
Candy creatures to make, their hides smooth as glass
Menageries prance in their crystalline structure
Translucent and crimson and emerald in color
While setting by windows they’ll bend dimming day
Their sinews catch lights, curling them in display
The reindeer and sailing ships, presidents and kings
The bicycling toads gather round now to sing:

“We are the CLEAR TOY CANDIES! We come but once a year!
We bring with us an elegance, a Christmas-season’s cheer!
We’re made of molten sugardust that faerie swarms deposit!
We’ve come to overtake your shelves with merriment and frolic!
In copper tubs our souls are stewed with vulcan fire’s breath
We’ll simmer down in ironware amid a chilly caress
We are the CLEAR TOY CANDIES! It’s our annual arrival!
An arctic sort of chilliness ensures us our survival.
In wrapping winds of wintertime our glassy sails will crescent
We sing with candy-slicken’d throats a tune that can’t be lessened!
We are the CLEAR CANDIES! At Christmastime we swoon!
Rejoicing with our sweetened hearts we sing of sugar dunes!
We sing of candy continents with soda water shores!
We sing of sugar blizzards and white marshmallow moors!
We sing ourselves a song until snoring we’re asleep
Forgetting what will finish us-- the hammer, tooth, or heat.

Autumn '10 SCOOP

To Our Patrons, Ashine and Esteemed:

The slow soak of autumn shawls city block-trotters, petticoats pinwheel in westbound winds, writhing branches on forested mountainsides en-kindle with fiery colors. These signals remind us yearly of the scarcity of warmth as the earth wheels itself into a shadow’s submersion. As we plummet into night, the value of a snug embrace, a seething cider, and a toasty pie slice rises like a moon-tugged tide. Once more, The Franklin Fountain is glad to furnish you with a romantic clime and roasted treats.

Pumpkin Ice Cream hangs once more on our flavor list! And that can only mean one thing: “The Great Pumpkin Sundae” has returned! This legendary sundae is the reward for true believers -- anyone who tastes it is catapulted immediately into a drooling nirvana. It consists of pumpkin ice cream (itself spiced with ground cinnamon and nutmeg), salted pecan halves, a buttery golden caramel sauce, barleyfield malt powder, whipped cream, and cinnamon dust. This elusive sundae is a magnificent soul-slosher. Stop by and try to become infused in its trance! Specialty “Whoopee Pies” reappear again this season -- pumpkinbread discs sandwiching gingerbread buttercream frosting. Once lunchbox treats for farm laborers, these delicious pastries now know the whimsical calligraphy of our signature. We have also introduced, for the first time “Honeycomb Ice Cream” to our menu; a honey flavored ice cream hived with homemade honeycomb candy clusters. The flavorful hidden nests are brittle toffee-like bits with a caramelized honey taste. They’re certain to make you drone with pleasure.

Recently we have assisted our friends and neighbors “Design for Social Impact” with their “Posters for the People” gallery opening at Penn State Great Valley, which featured an array of Works Progress Administration commissioned poster art straight outta the New Deal. We donated our famed Pumpkin Ice Cream to their event, affectionately nicknaming the flavor “Pumpkin for the People.” The attendees were all treated to our autumnal treat.

“Pumpkins unite! You have nothing to lose but your vines!”- The Pumpkunist Manifesto
In case any Philadelphians haven’t noticed, The Phillies have been swinging their way to the pennant with rousing success. We are featuring a few items to commemorate their victories. First off, we are debuting our “No Hit Split”, doffing our ballcaps to Roy “Doc” Halladay’s historic no-hitter in the first game of this year’s playoffs. We will serve in a banana boat three baseball-sized vanilla scoops “x”’ed with three strawberry syrup “strike” signals-- garnished atop with peanuts and Cracker Jacks. We will also be giving away FREE red and white jimmies every time the Philles win a playoff game. Additionally, we will be selling “Champ Cherry Soda” in shop, a Philadelphia soft drink founded by hot dog tycoon Abe Levis on 6th Street in 1896. Originally titled “Champagne Cherry Soda”, the name changed in 1950 after the Phillies won the pennant that year. As legend has it, the soda is supposed to bring good luck to the fightin’ Phils. So drink one today to bring the boys luck!

Once again, news of our delicious goodies has been inked in magazine type and has wiggled across airwaves. We have been featured in the October 2010 issue of “Everyday with Rachel Ray”, on page 154. There, our “Caramel Apple Pie” shake is elegantly displayed. In their own words, “The Caramel Apple Pie Hot Milkshake is a slab of warm pie sinking into a vanilla shake, draped in hot caramel and served with a spoon and a straw for mixing, eating, slurping and licking clean.” The concoction was created in the autumn of ‘07 by Ryan Berley and soda jerk hall-of-famer Elliot Landes. We have also been featured once again on “The Food Network”, this time on the show “The Best Thing I Ever Ate”, this particular episode being entitled “The Best Thing I Ever Drank.” The episode featured Food Network personalities Duff Goldman and Marc Summers, who hailed Franklin Fountain drinks “The Egyptienne Egg Shake” and “The Chocolate Ice Cream Soda” to be their favorite drinks, respectively. The Egyptienne Egg Shake, a Heinbach-Berley creation, is an old-fashioned phosphate consisting of orange and rosewater syrups, a tincture of phosphoric acid, a beaten egg, sparkling water, ice, an Arabian date, and dried Blue Nile Lotus petal (when infused as a tea, the blue Nile lotus flower is said to produce a “feeling of joy that permeates the whole body, emanating from every cell".) The Chocolate Ice Cream Soda is a staple of The New York City soda fountain circuit. It is a chocolate soda, made with Fox’s “U-Bet” chocolate syrup, straight from Brookyln, and a scoop of our homemade chocolate syrup. The two Food Network personalities hemmed and hawed about which drink was superior, finally deciding that each drink held its worth based on their individual merits.

Meanwhile, on the Shane Candies front, we have been making significant headway in preparing the polished gem for its grand re-opening. We are currently restoring the building to its original lustre. Quite a bit of sprucing-up is underway, and while we don’t want to give away many details (although there are many beautiful ones), we can reveal that the interior palate of the shop will be inspired by the colors seen inside of Independence Hall. More is to come on this subject in the near future.

That’s about all for now, dear Fountaineers. Thank you once again for your patronage and attention.

Through chill and with warmth,

The Franklin Fountain

Mid-Summer SCOOP!

Fountaineers,

Look at this past July! These summer days are piled high with sunshine and sing-song, so much so that the mercury in our thermometers is quite near to going crackly through its glassy girdles. We don’t mean to sound repetitive or braggy, but it must be reported once more that we have smashed sales records in the midst of the sweltering sunstorm. We would like to once again thank our returning patrons and those arriving anew! Please continue to return in regular intervals so that we can happify your palettes, nullify your thirst, and electrify your hearts.

In more militant news, we’d like to report that war was declared upon us. Barry “The Nosh Guy” Eichner, a fellow Philadelphian who runs the food blog “Food Rulez” (http://foodrulez.com/), challenged us to battle in his “Ice Cream Warz”. What were the terms of battle? “Make a banana split, serve it up in a classic style, and let us judge it on 4 categories, Toppings, Ice Cream, Presentation, Creativity.” The other warring ice cream empires? Bassetts Ice Cream, Scoop DeVille, and More Than Just Ice Cream. We prepared, and when Eichner stepped into our territory,we signaled our recruits, and waged song and dance upon he and his cohorts. The Berleys and select staff crooned away to a recording of Louie Prima’s 1949 song “Banana Split for My Baby” while we made a split on our menu sharing the same title. He was knocked out, and awarded us victors in the departments of “Best Presentation” and “Most Creativity.” His full write-up can be viewed here: http://foodrulez.com/2010/07/23/ice-cream-warz-winnerz/

In additional contest news, we would also like to report that we have been nominated for “Best Ice Cream Shop” on MyPhl17’s 2010 Philly HOT LIST. Please be sure to vote for us!

http://phillyhotlist.cityvoter.com/contests/best-of-the-philly-hot-list/4776/specialty-food-and-drink/ice-cream-shop

In even more award news, we have received, from Philadelphia Magazine, the 2010 award for “Best Ice Cream in Philadelphia.” This is just about as high an honor as you can get in this town, and we’re right thankful for it. We last received “Best of Philly” for “Best Date Spot” in 2009 and another Best of Philly ribbon for “Best Ice Cream” in 2006. Kudos to our staff for earning the honors! Without your earnest assistance, we would fail to transfix both critic and customer in our winning charm. As Philadelphia Magazine has observed and documented, we churn out the finest ice cream dainties, whir the best shakes, and provide the most ample swooning grounds. Pick up an issue to see for yourself!

Speaking of enchantment and romance, if you feel a desire to enhance both, then perhaps you should try stopping by Penn’s Landing in Old City in the near future. Beginning on August the 6th and continuing throughout September the 3rd, the Delaware River Waterfront Corporation will be sponsoring FREE FIREWORKS at Penn’s landing each Friday evening from 9:30pm. Witness, both overhead and in the reflected and wavering glimmer on the Delaware, an elegant fireworks display, as luminous flora blossom explosively.

On Saturday, July the 12th, we were invited to attend the”Ultimate Ice Cream Festival”, sponsored by WHYY, at Philadelpia’s historic Reading Terminal Market, Philadelphia’s oldest vendor. Bassetts Ice Cream, Fishers Ice cream, and Bellisimo Gelato also participated in the festivity. We served root beer floats with blueberry ice cream. Our root beer keg was being chilled in a vat of ice water, but was time passed and the heat index raised, we soon lost all of our ice to mother nature’s equilibrium. The folks at Bassetts were kind enough to lend us some dry ice (solid state carbon dioxide, for all the science fans) which we placed into our keg’s cooling bath. Immediately, the bin billowed with a sprawling and spooky fog. A crowd gathered, pointing at the spilling mist. For hours afterward, we had a long line of marketers seeking a root beer float. The event also included fun and games, including a game we concocted to eat a scoop of ice cream without using your hands, with the only available utensil being a handmade candy cane. The event was a blast and we thank everybody involved

We made an architectural discovery regarding our new property at Shane Candies. We are in the process of giving the Shane storefront a face lift, and while doing so, we came across an astonishing find -- we peeled away some curved galvanized sheet metal on the bottommost edge of the storefront and found hiding behind it a series of over-a-century-old curved arch lights, hinged glass doors originally used to aerate and illuminate the cellar. They are flecked with a chipping lapis lazuli paint and are of a royal azure color. They have been untouched for a stack of decades, and we will restore them fully in the near future.

Lastly, we have some news in the flavor department. Our peach ice cream is now made with fresh in-season peaches from Green Meadow Farm. We recommend that you try it in a Peach Melba Parfait Sundae with our house-made raspberry puree. Additionally, we have re-introduced our “Crème de Lafayette” ice cream to once again commemorate Marquis de Lafayette, the French aristocrat, philosopher, and General in the American Revolutionary War. Our ice cream flavor is a rich french vanilla ice cream, swirled with a blueberry and raspberry purees, emulating the red-white-and-blue colors adapted by Lafayette to emblem his militia’s cockade when storming the French Bastille in 1790. An interesting anecdote -- while visiting Philadelphia, Lafayette is rumored to have visited Durrand’s Pharmacy at 6th and Market, which stood as an early form of soda fountain. We’d like to think that both Lafayette and Franklin would proclaim the ice cream “c'est très magnifique!”

Well, that’s about all this go around. We wish you continued gusto and glee this season.

-The Franklin Fountain

JUNE '10 SCOOP

To The Citizenry of Confectionery,

You cocoa cravers, who hold in your hearts a drumming want for berry sauces, who ache for the salty dunes of rubbled almonds. You, who anticipate a kingdom of candy on whose sugared shores a sweet wind trills, keep this news close to your soul and offer it to the breezes: the Berley Brothers have bought Shane Candies! The official sale occurred rather quietly when Barry Shane, the eldest of the Shane clan, bequeathed his ninety-nine year old candy store over to the Berleys in The Franklin Fountain office. The Berley Brothers have promised to honor the Shane name and legacy by continuing the famed candy line for decades yet uncoursed. The news broke like a dawn, spilling out across newspaper headlines (including two articles penned by veteran Philadelphia Inquirer food columnist Rich Nichols) and throughout the web-work of food blogs in varied nooks of cyberspace. We can assure our readership, our clientele, and ourselves that we are humbled and honored to take upon the reigns of Shane Candies, which is one of the few remaining continuously run confectioneries not just in Philadelphia, but in our nation.

The entire staff of the Franklin Fountain has an anchor-deep interest in history. In fact, a spiritual resonance for our inherited histories is a pre-requisite for employment. To commemorate Shane Candies even in the smallest ways would affirm the deepest realms of our nature. So, without divulging too many secrets, we guarantee that we will revive Shane Candies to its brightest life, but more than this, to resuscitate fully a craft which has roots through centuries, and which was once integral to the economy and history of Philadelphia. We aim to re-open Shane Candies this coming Autumn season. In the meantime, please stop by The Franklin Fountain to pick up a card for a free candy gift to be presented to new and returning patrons! We also hope to publish a fuller account of the Shane Candy purchase, as well as their store history, in the coming months. Stay tuned for further updates!

Here at the Fountain, we have debuted a new ice cream flavor, "Mulberry", made from hand-prepared mulberries from Green Meadow Farm fixed into a preserve. The flavor is delicate and tickles neglected areas of the contemporary palette. Dr. Benjamin Franklin himself studied and planted mulberry trees in the 1750s and early 1760s when studying silkworms, imploring often that the nation grow a great multitude of trees so that a homegrown silk industry could develop in the colonies.

We have also made two specialty flavors for National Mechanics (the famed bar on 22 North 3rd Street), "Porter Ice Cream" and "Apricot Sorbet". Our Porter Ice Cream is made with "Flying Dog Brewery"'s "Gonzo Imperial Porter". It tastes smooth and hoppy, has an underlying richness, and is supplemented nicely by the creamy texture. "Apricot Sorbet" is another winner, being made from fresh apricots poached in sugar and Magic Hat #9. The flavor is fruity and more complicated, its ethereal sweetness plucks the tastebuds like lyre strings.

On June the 4th, our good friends at the gallery "Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (on 116 North Third Street) held an exhibition called "The Roots of Root Beer" documenting the long history of a uniquely American beverage. The curators collaborated with Ryan Berley, borrowing and displaying many items from The Franklin Fountain's collection of ice cream & soda fountain artifacts. Ryan was there the opening night, lecturing about pharmacist Charles Hires who first commercially sold the drink. "Root" Beer Floats were also given away at the event opening, made with Art in the Age's signature drink, "Root" and our homemade vanilla ice cream. Please visit here for a recap on the event:

http://www.artintheage.com/blog/the-roots-of-root-beer-exhibition-re-cap/ VISIT BEFORE JUNE 27th!

That's all for now! Enjoy the warm weather, and please stop by the Fountain for a sweet drink, a warm smile, a cold ice cream, and a glad time!

-The Franklin Fountain

Spring SCOOP '10

SPRING SCOOP

The rush of renewed spirit enters every sponge in nature and here at 1-1-6 Market Street, the kind cosmic boost is felt and appreciated! We have had, inside of the past few weeks, our most successful days in the history of our business. For many days moisture-vaulted clouds released their rains, but after the wetness subsided and the soils had a drink, frenzied onrushes of ice cream cravers bottlenecked at our door. We welcome the lines of tourists out our door, arrived from the curves of continents afar and the nearest nook in our neighborhood.

A few weeks ago we received in our shop two culinary celebrities: Mark Summers and "Duff" Goldman, of the Food Network's "Unwrapped" and "The Ace of Cakes". They arrived with cycloning passion to shoot a segment for "The Best Thing I Ever Ate", another Food Network staple. Each world-renowned foodie was there to endorse the best drink that they had ever drunk, and both were Franklin Fountain specialties. Evidently, Duff had been coming into the shop for years asking his favorite drink "The Egyptienne Egg Shake", and notified his producers of this personal fact. The Egyptienne Egg Shake, a Heinbach-Berley creation , was originally conceived to commemorate the King Tutankhamen exhibit at the Franklin Institute in 2007 and dually the discovery of the Pharoh's tomb by Howard Carter in 1921. The drink is a throwback to the raw egg drinks of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries - a forerunner for the protein shake. It consists of orange and rose syrups, an organic farm fresh beaten egg, tinctures of phosphoric acid and Angostura bitters, soda water, a bejeweling date garnish, and a sprinkling of dried Blue Nile lotus flower (known by the ancients for its euphoric lift.)

Duff was challanged by Mr. Summers, who felt that the best drink that he'd ever partaken of was an old fashioned Chocolate Ice Cream Soda, made with soda water, Brooklyn's own Fox's "U-Bet" chocolate syrup , and a scoop of our housemade chocolate ice cream floating on top. The drink is both straightforward and nostalgic. Which prevailed? You'll have to stay tuned for the broadcast. We'll let you know when it is due to premiere. In the meantime, enjoy both drinks and try to decide for yourselves.

Speaking of Food Network premiere dates, our segment on "Unwrapped" which we mentioned the shooting of in an earlier blogpost premiered on MAY 10th, 8:30 PM ET!

We have brought back "Banana" ice cream. We recommend it in the "Banana War" ice cream soda, a chocolate soda tinctured with vanilla and almond syrups, with a scoop of Banana ice cream floating on its surface. It commemorates the various "Banana Wars" conducted from 1898 until roughly 1925 between the United States and many Caribbean and South American Nations, fought, in part, over the exports of the bananas. The ice cream soda is a tropical, ripe treat, laced with an undertone of danger and intrigue.

On the subject of ice cream and banana wars, we have a separate anecdote to knot in here... The Berleys and other prominent staff members including our own Patrick O'Neill recently held an ice cream social onboard the USS Olympia, harbored at Penn's Landing (but not for much longer.) The Olympia was Commodore George Dewey's flagship cruiser at the Battle of Manilla Bay during the Spanish-American War in 1899 (The mother of all Banana Wars.) The crew and those on board all had a fantastic time and enjoyed our ice cream immensely.

For more news of flavor introductions and re-inclusions, we're announcing with pride that "Red Raspberry Sorbet" has made its triumphant return, and we have introduced "Orange-Pineapple Ice Cream" as a new flavor. Be sure to try these on your next stop by!

We hope that you've been enjoying the spring weather and the renewed life that the season brings.

"The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn"- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Blossom fully and forwardly, but once more, not without ice cream.

The Franklin Fountain.

March '10 SCOOP

Bonnie Lads and Lasses,

The daylight lengthens. Life blooms from the earth! Why, green glistens at every bend! And what rainbows sling themselves across the skies to horseshoe the heavens? St. Patrick's Day marches near and we're well prepared this year with a fine selection of specials to top your morning.
To commemorate the Philadelphia Flower show the "Orange Honey Rose Blossom Ice Cream" will be featured again in our flowering "American Beauty" ice cream soda . Its fluted glass contains vanilla syrup, the taste of a compressed groveful of orange, an overtone of flourished rose, and the wet work of a needling network of honeybees. Aye, we've more: our "Irish Potato Ice Cream Cone", a scoop of our coconut ice cream covered in a powdery pillow of cinnamon. We shall also be selling "Irish Potatoes" singly, bits of coconut creme filling, a sprinkled coat of cinnamon, and studs on crushed nut potato "eyes". We have also ploughed through our Soda Fountain Dispenser's Formulary and amid its yellowing pages we found a shining gem: the recipe for the "Irish Lace Cream Shake". This marvel contains strawberry and pineapple syrups, sweet cream and angostura bitters, a firm scoop of vanilla ice cream, shaken briskly as a cocktail, served in a tall glass, and garnished with a scarlet cherry. It has the warm glow of sunset, bursts of fruity sweetness, and the delicate beauty of Irish lace itself.

This month "Green River" soda will flow like the Shannon. "Green River" dates back to the year 1919 when it was created during the Prohibition by the Schoenhofen Brewery in Chicago. Eddie "Banjo Eyes" Cantor, a Ziegfeld Follies entertainer, wrote a jingle for the fizzy green stuff. Have yourselves a glass & sip the endangered Americana.

Ah, well, we should note here that we've resumed our seven-day-a-week schedule here at the Franklin Fountain. We will be open on Sundays through Thursdays from noon til' 11p.m., and on Fridays and Saturdays from noon til' Midnight.

That's all we have for now, Fountaineers. As the poets of old Ireland said:

"May God grant you always...

A sunbeam to warm you

A moonbeam to charm you,

A sheltering angel, so nothing can harm you."

February '10 SCOOP

FEBRUARY '10 SCOOP

To Our Dearest Readers, by Distance and with Closeness:

St. Valentine's Day approaches and love is in the air! Heck, the joint is practically cracklin' with the stuff! And such a suitable season to house it! Madly the heart thumps, chirring with systolic murmur, encaged in its ribbed nook. The Lover's pupils widen like dropped parachutes, their speech gnarls like tree roots. But what gesture or charm will betoken the target of their heaving heart's out-pour? Why not a snowy promenade to The Franklin Fountain? Think of it! The palpitating plunge of numberless snowflakes, the silken shine of the moon, lambent and large in a quilt of clouds. And in you'll swing through our oaken doors, wrapped in warmth and your courter's clench, where you will stand to be pampered and pepped. Mayn't we oversupply you with ammunition to enamor? Allow us to serenade you with this February's offerings -- a Darkened Chocolate Raspberry Truffle ice cream (it produces sure fire soul quivers, our homemade truffles are engorged with Chambord, a blessedly spirit-seethed raspberry wine), an arrowing slice of our Double Chocolate Truffle Cake, or a tall glass of our recalescent, blood-bubbling Red Hot Cinnamon Coca-Cola. Our narrow palace is the natural lover's swooning-ground, we were even given the honor of "Best First Date" destination by 2009's "Best of Philly" awards. So come, surround yourself and your love with the gentle slosh of romantic tunes effused from our 1920s Philco radio, let our endorphin-surging chocolate desserts assist the width of your stare. Our hand-and-foot service shall help to attune your hearts to the hallowed hum of the celestia aswirl a short sky away.

With Furnacing Hearts,

The Franklin Fountain



PS: We hold a font spot in our hearts for Fathers of Country Washington & Lincoln and will be open Presidents Day in celebration of their births. (12 noon until 11pm)

Winter '10 SCOOP

Winter '10 SCOOP

Folks, we're presently clasped in a frigid and breezy Winter, but we've drifted past the tensed aperture of the solstice and brighter days are quite literally ahead. And the first rays angling through the stratosphere are those of a dawning decade. Here, within the curved pucker of space, time, and imagination at "The Franklin Fountain," the decade that emerges before us is that of the rollicking teens. We foresee, with tingles and towered tenacity, the fog-swaddled bays of events yet un-coursed, ruffled with wave crests tsunamic and small. We hope for our business to grow full and unbidden, and so long as we may flush your cheeks pink with rose and your hearts bright with light, this desire can congeal without trouble or ice.

In keeping with the tradition of the last three years, we have closed our shop for the week (Monday through Thursday) for the months of January and February. Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, however, are still stuffy with the action of good sales. During the week, we have been using our allotted time to make sweeping restorations to our building. Most notable is the repair work we've begun on our penny tile floor. Over the past eleven decades, the floor had grown grout-grimed. We have taken the substantial initiative to have the magnificent and historic thing chemically blasted, restoring its luster which hadn't been known to the eye of the trodden on-looker in over a century. We have also flossed every cranny and nook of the place to redeem its sheen with a variety of polishes and cares. It's a pure shimmer now, indeed.

We have also procured new bowls for our "Franklin Mint Sundae". The Sundae itself is one of our staple offerings: a mint-chocolate chipped gem positively reticulated in a corded latticework

of marshmallow glaze, Creme-de-Menthe and chocolate syrup. Now, it will be seated with methyl regality in a mint-leaf shaped glass slipper.

We have also begun to reach for tomorrow with a foot in yesterday, finding ourselves strangely situated in the world of today. What do I mean by all this confoundedness? Why, I mean to say that we've enacted "Facebook" and "Flickr" accounts, of course. Befriend us immediately in order receive the latest updates, deals, and giveaways! What's that? you say you're too old-fashioned for this newfangled flim-flam? Nonsense! Straighten your heads? What was Benjamin Franklin, if not America's first blogger? Indeed, he was the first self-publisher, as Poor Richard. An Almanacker and a Blogger are terms interchangeable, so we feel that we are carrying on a tradition of the great savant himself, and within his general residency.

Well, that's just about all we have for you this time. Stop by, in multiples if you must, and sip on one of our Philadelphia Magazine featured European drinking chocolates over amiable chatter. See the article here:

http://www.phillymag.com/articles/taste_cravings_hot_chocolate/

Ta-ta until next time, and good cheer!

...but before we leave you fully, we thought it might be fun to glance backward at the decade which nods in our wake here at the old "FF," "The 'Aughts, 1900-1910," for if you were to fold the past century shut clam-wise and compare its ends, you may notice that its events are not altogether dissimilar. Let's take a look:

• The decade begins with sudden loss and quick transition, the death of two prominent heads of state, one British and one American, one anticipated and one not, respectively. I speak of Queen Victoria and President William McKinley. Victoria's queenship presided over six long and self-stamped decades, a planet-spanning empire rooted under her scepter. She passed in late January of 1901 of old age. Later in September of that same year, President McKinley was shot twice by Leon Frank Czolgosz, a Polish immigrant with a flare for fanaticism, with a handkerchief-wrapped .32 caliber Iver-Johnson revolver. President McKinley had begun to sprout a small empire of his own, and the young Czolgosz showed his dissatisfaction with twinned fire of bullets. The President died days afterward, to be succeeded by his Vice President Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt, a jovial New York cowboy with Coca-Cola spectacles and a walrus moustache. Roosevelt, with the romance of the West in his head, heart, and decree, developed upon his predecessors expansionist policies to the cheer of gunslingers and dismay of peace-wishers. His image was stonily stoic larger than life, little surprise this would later manifest itself literally on Mt. Rushmore decades afterward.
• The world of communication netted itself into a complex web-work which forever altered the face and consciousness of the country and planet. Telegraphs, telephones, electric light, recorded sound, motion pictures, and the wireless transmission of information and energy, all infantile developments of the latter-half of the previous century, would branch fantastically onto the American scene in a wiry vascular arrangement of inter-connectivity. The pioneering works of men such as Samuel Morse, Alexander Graham Bell, Nikola Tesla, Michael Faraday, Thomas Edison, Guglielmo Marconi, James Clark Maxwell, and Albert Einstein (who published his theory of Special Relativity in 1905) profoundly perturbed how we view, interpret and utilize the world around us. "Movies" flickered onto makeshift screens in converted storefronts dubbed "Nickelodeons". Telegraphs sent text messages across land-masses and lapping oceans. Invisible scintilla carried radiated messages and song in what would come to be known as "radio", thanks to the competing works of Tesla and Marconi. Music and speeches were able to become locked like fossils in solidified discs or cylinders of wax, thanks to Edison's phonograph. Within this decade man took wing to the skies with the first engined and sustained aeroplane flight by the Wright Brothers in 1903-- the frontiers of the human playground then knew one less fence. Distances seemed to shrink and family nuclei dissolve as automobiles provided rickety propulsion from the farmhouse, anchored in the wheatfield, towards the skyscraper-prickled cities in the distance. Buildings grew tall and slums grew wide. "Jazz" music took shape, a novel and bawdy sound of seeming incongruence to the trembling opera and bobbing waltzes we inherited from Western Europe. This stuff was new. "Ragtime" music, spearheaded by Scott Joplin, infused slave-derived West-African syncopation and percussive style, marching band upswing, and late Romantic luster. Concurrently, "Tin-Pan Alley," a street in the Flatiron District of New York City, churned out jazzy sheet music and vaudeville acts with assembly line regularity. Composed of the ethnic poor of the Bowery, competition was fierce and frequent to produce a laugh and a tune, in ever-innovative ways. Irving Berlin, a poor Eastern-European Jew living in Manhattan's Lower East Side, emerged as a stellar American songwriter. Creative fields sprawled and lashed, suffusing elements of everyday life, in art forms both high and low. The "Cubist" movement reared itself in 1907 when Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque arranged figures with an almost crystalline planarity and vibrant color schemes onto canvas, undoing centuries-long attitudes on the rules of perspective. The "Art Nouveau" movement was also strongly afoot, A Parisian- based movement promoting color and curve, which later saw its influence impressed on common architecture and utility design. The movement had its larger opening to the public at the 50 million person attended "Exposition Universelle" in Paris in 1900. Poster Art and Comic books began to make innovate use of this bright new loopy look.
• For all the novel arts and invention, there was also war and economic panic. In 1907 there was an uproarious crash of the stock market, leading to a creaky currency and unsteady banks. This effect rippled for years after-wards (and, arguably, still is), eventually leading to the foundation of the Federal Reserve Bank in 1913 and a graduated income tax system. The banking system was turned on its head, as was the system for the issuance of paper and coin currency. The breakout of War was seen across the globe: The Boxer Rebellion in Peking in 1900, skirmishes with Colombia over Panama between 1901-1902, interaction in Honduras in 1903, Marine involvement in the Dominican Republic in 1903, forces sent to protect the American Consulate in Beirut in 1903, the Russo-Japanese War broke between 1904-05, and a small involvement in Cuba between 1906 and 1907. William Randolph Hearst fanned the jingoistic flames with his yellow press, and detractors formed the "American Anti-Imperialist League", which included such men as Grover Cleveland, Andrew Carnegie, Mark Twain, and Edgar Lee Masters.
• In summary, the opening decade of the past century was every bit as tense, awe-inspiring, creatively bountiful, stuffy with pop-culture, and tumbling with tragedy as the opening decade of this century. We hope this gives you a few new angles of perspective on our cultural inheritance. Let's do our very best to make this next decade as bountiful with beauty as we can, with the maximum minimization of harm. As Mark Twain said, regarding hope : "It is like any other agriculture: if you hoe it and harrow it and water it enough, you can make three blades of it grow where none grew before. If you've got nothing to plant, the process is slow and difficult, but if you've got a seed of some kind or other--any kind will answer--you get along a good deal faster." (Three Thousand Years Among the Microbes)