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)

December SCOOP!

Well, Franklin Fountain fans, we've set full sail for December in festive style; the shop has been gussied with yuletide decor. Our clear toy candy is displayed delicately in the window, and beside it sits our diminutive Christmas tree, wreathed in beaded strings of sugared cranberries, trails of popcorn, and be-decked with candles and holiday ornaments. Holiday pies are being churned out in a fruited continuum by Davina (our pastry chef) and enjoyed by a diverse, globe-girdling clientele. Visitors from France, Germany, South Africa, Turkey, Israel, and Japan have all praised
the deliciousness of our baked goods and special ice creams.

Have you found yourselves in a nervous scramble to find the perfect gifts for your loved ones this holiday season? You needn't look any further than our lamp lit display shelves, filled with our colorful crystalline clear toy candies, ready to be boxed in a nest of straw-stuffing (to insure the safety of an unbroken transport). We have an array of smaller candies as well, which cannot be excelled as stocking-fillers. Towards the back of our shop you will also find an antique pharmacy cabinet full of tentative gifts -- silken bow-ties from Vermont, a collection of dozens of novelty sodas we scoured the continent to shelve, some fragrant toiletries like Florida Water or J.R. Liggetts Bar Shampoos, or perhaps one of our many books pertaining to confectionery and soda fountain history. Also, we have for sale spritely "Springerle Cookies, soft flavored cookies which are minted (the verb, not the adjective) from hand-carved molds in a tradition dating back centuries into Teutonic yore. Springerle Cookies have been a Pennsylvania-German tradition since 1710 when they were introduced into Lancaster County by field-threshing settlers. Today, they are produced intricately to honor heritage and to "celebrate daily life" by "The Springerle House" in Strasburg, Pennsylvania. Be sure to pick some up to gift, hold, or taste!

The Food Network has stopped in this week in a two-fold effort to provide a setting for Marc Summers to host the acclaimed "Unwrapped" show and for "American Classics" to document once more our Clear Toy Candy making process.
It was more than a delight to work
with Mark and his amiable crew.
The shoot transgressed smoothly and a few customers even got to sit in as extras! The show should debut sometime in early 2010, we'll be sure to keep everyone posted as to when it will be broadcast. Also, on more "pressing" note, get a glimpse of the clear toy candy making process and tune in to the 10 Show on Tuesday morning, December 22nd at 10am to watch the Berley Brothers at work on their glass confectionery.

May everyone enjoy the holiday season with a glad heart! We can assure our readership that the goods and the cheer which we carry can supplement any holiday get-together, and that our novel candied handiworks provide endearingly-expressed sentiments to those you most care for. We thank you all again for your enthused support, and hope in earnest that you call again soon. Be well and do well! Be merry, loving, and wise! But don't be without our treats and wares!


Holiday Hours:
Closed: Christmas Eve & Christmas Day.
OPEN: Friday & Saturday 11am - midnight
Sunday 11am - 11pm
Monday - Thursday 12 noon - 11pm

November SCOOP

It's November here at The Franklin Fountain, and its old familiarities have returned to us once more-- the gentle tumble of amber-rusted tree leaves, the trickled climb of chimney smoke into advancing sunsets, the increasingly bundled huddles of street traffic -- the combined onset of these elements usually quiets our shop and our pace significantly, but this season we have received several unanticipated blessings. First and foremost, we have had an incredible influx of business due to the premiere of "Man Vs. Food" on The Travel Channel. For those out of the know, the show is hosted and ring-led by the larger-than-life Adam Richman, who, on a per-episode basis, is challenged with feats of the digestively-impossible. This specific episode dealt with the finest and the largest Philadelphia cuisine. Adam stopped at the Reading Terminal Market, engulfed a gargantuan cheese steak at Tony Luke's, and, to top it all off, proudly traipsed through The Fountain's doors to ingurgitate a few of our most mammoth concoctions, (namely the Mount Vesuvius, The Franklin Mint, and The Lightning Rod sundaes.)

Amidst the sprouting tufts of whipped cream, the frantic blizzard of brownies, the avalanching slabs of ice cream, and the out-spewed ooze of molten fudge, Richman remained. He has earned our applause and respect for withstanding the onslaught. With that said, the global broadcast of the show has brought us an unforeseen wave of new customers from all across the country, and, ostensibly, the planet. We have been jolted with a positive pandemonium; never before have we had to assemble so many Mount Vesuviae or Franklin Mints! It's been unspeakably wonderful to welcome and delight a fresh new crop of locals and travelers into the shop. For more information on "Man vs. Food" and the hijinks of Richman, please peruse this web address: http://www.travelchannel.com/TV_Shows/Man_v_Food

In other news, our "Hot Menu" has debuted to an enthusiastic public for yet another chilly season. With that, as prophesied, "The Great Pumpkin Sundae" has returned to the delight of our doted true-believers. The "Hot Sodas" are fizzing a happy warmth, and our novel "Hot Milkshakes" continue to bewilder and enthrall. The niceness of scent of flame-consumed homemade marshmallows in a graham cracker pinch cannot be understated, and that's exactly what you'll get with our "Toasted Marshmallow Malted". Our pastry chef, Davina Soondrum, has graced us again with her scratch-made pies (Apple, Peach Praline, Mixed Berry and Shoo-Fly) which can be spun warm into our milkshakes.

Jennifer McGlinn, author and food historian, will be conducting an in-shop book signing here at the Fountain on Saturday November 28th from Noon until 5pm. To supplement her autography, gingerbread samples will be given to the arrived public. This would be the opportune time to announce the latest addition to the Franklin Fountain flavor list, "Gingerbread Ice Cream." Our Gingerbread Ice Cream recipe is derived from McGlinn's scholarship into historic gingerbread cookery receipts. Speaking of note-worthy Gingerbreadists, we would also like to take this time to highlight the overlooked profile of one Christopher Ludwick, whom was legendary in his time for baking gingerbread out of Letitia Court. (now Letitia Street, running parallel to The Franklin Fountain) Ludwick produced such high-quality gingerbread and in such fantastic quantities that Washington himself awarded Ludwick the status of Baker-General of the Continental Army during the War for Independence. By his toil and industry Ludwick prospered greatly, and contributed his proceeds to the revolutionary cause. We'd like to think that Ludwick would smile at the fact that Gingerbread Ice Cream is being produced in the very same Court he was baking in over two hundred years ago.

Another forgotten ice cream flavor that has made the holiday list is our new Chestnut Ice Cream (editor's note: It's astonishing. I'm not kidding.) By the account of all those who have tried it, it is rooted in some celestial plane. We sourced our chestnuts earlier in the year from Delmarvelous Chestnuts (www.buychestnuts.com), a couple of dedicated Delawarians resurrecting the nuts of the tree which, for over a century, has neared extinction (the unforgiving "Chestnut Blight" beggining in the 1860s which practically wiped the desiduous delites out of existence.) After decades of hybridization with Asiatic chestnut trees, these chestnuts are bona-fide, nearly 100% American Chestnut.) For our ice cream, we have spent hours peeling, boiling, and, candying the wonder-seeds to acquire an ice cream that, when tasted, elicits a sweet transcendence.

As you may have anticipated, our "CLEAR TOY CANDIES", marveled-worldwide, will be produced once more following the Thanksgiving holiday. These beauteous figures are handcrafted with fire, grace, and tedium out of our basement workspace, being forged in a variance of over two-hundred and fifty cast iron candy molds. Their preparation is careful and laborious, our team of candymakers must gather in a space most bereft of heat and humidity to smelt sugar in antique copperware heated over kettle flame, then pour the scalding glow into the open molds. The candies can be tinted scarlet, emerald, or they may sparkle with aurulence in their natural hue. We encourage the lot of you to peer into our shop window on a wintry day where a full menagerie of these beauts will be exhibited, whilst they careen and refract the dimming day with glassy elegance. HOWEVER, if you

would like to be witness to their stellar debut (and why shouldn't you?), we invite and impel you to arrive at the Omni Hotel this November 28th promptly at 11 A.M., where we hope to furnish them amongst a gathered chorus of carolers, a ceremoniously-lit Christmas tree, and all the dazzling paraphernalia of the season! But more than this, we've good word that jolly old SAINT NICK will be arriving triumphantly to officiate the celebration. Do attend if you are able!

(photograph courtesy of Ruth Savitz)






Gentle readers, we thank you for keeping in touch with us here at "The Franklin Fountain", and for your continued support and patronage. With due sincerity we wish you the best. May you all dwell in peace of mind, warmth of heart, and safety of soul this holiday season. And to be sure, with your allowance, it is with no small aim that we hope to contribute to your happiness with our cool sweets and salving spirits.

In warm regards with cool desserts,

The Franklin Fountain