I attended the annual Ice Cream Short Course at Penn State University last week.  This course has been teaching folks the rigors of ice cream production and marketing for the the 118 years. In fact my great uncle took this course in 1920.

I flew to to Pennsylvania, State College Pennsylvania, along with an employee and fellow ice cream enthusiast. It was difficult to get to State College. It was some distance from a major airport and 12 degrees cold. I feared driving in the snow. I was born in southern California and can’t handle the cold, snowy driving. Anyway, I knew we were going to a school steeped in dairy tradition, so I thought we were going to a quaint "dairy" school. I was so wrong. Penn State has 65,000 students and faculty. It was magnificent and exciting. 

The course was filled with people from the ice cream industry, professionals wanting career changes, small time operators like me, and hobbiest. I can talk with the industry clones. I know the jargon but it is grass roots that I gravitate towards. I love the small time, the owner operators who are willing to put it all on the line.

 I immediately thrust myself into a group of excited new and upcoming entrepreneurs, who wanted to make something different and cutting edge. I was the retail veteran, having been in the business for the last 28 1/2 years.  Their passion that was so intoxicating. When I see young people wanting to launch a dream, it feels so right. They are the ones who are changing what people want and eat. They are the ones who are still willing to challenge the big box food industry. It is these people who will provide the texture to the communities that we live in. It will be these ice cream shops that we talk about and turn our friends onto. Who ever says to an out of town visitor. "We have a great big box store here, you want to go get an ice cream cone and hang out?" No one! Because it is the human element of the retail experience that is transferrable. The ice cream maker, caring about the flavors he or she creates Taking the time to make a store that is inviting and makes you want to return. 

Ben and Jerry took the Ice Cream Short Course and they had a retail dream. They did get big and eventually sold out to Unilever. It is the way things go. But they were this group of dreamers then. It felt good to meet them and share a week of dreaming with together, in between ice cream physics, molecular biology, chemistry, math, flavoring compounds, pasteurization, sanitation, soft serve, and gelato, and of course tasting ice cream!

Michael from Dojo in Cincinnati an existing ice cream shop, who has won best gelato of Cincinnati

 Julie who wants to have an ice cream bicycle delivery in Portland Oregon. 

Brian who wants an ice cream shop in Brooklyn New York.

 Doug who wants to make ice cream in Maine during the summer for friends.

 Dan who wants to add ice cream to his existing cheese business in Durango Colorado.

Jahan who wants to make ice cream somewhere someday.

Kirsten who wants to make ice cream out of goat milk.

And me, I want to add ice cream to our line of pastries, bread and cafe items. It will be in our courtyard, at a walk up window, I hope by summer.