e-book available for purchase!

Hey, friends. We’ve been working on this e-book pretty much since the day we closed, and we’ve finally finished testing recipes and turned it into something sellable. It’s a really simplistic design and there aren’t a bunch of beautiful photos, but we promise we personally tested every recipe to work in a home kitchen. And the recipes are what really matter, right?

Every recipe in this book is one we’ve used at our shop. There aren’t a ton of recipes, since we may want to release a Part Two at some point, but there is definitely enough to get you started! There’s a little bit of everything: ice cream, vegan ice cream, toppings, vegan and non-vegan baked goods. The e-book contains 20 recipes, with variations to make 22 recipes. We hope that making our goods at home can bring you a little bit of joy during this tough time. And we really, really miss seeing all your faces!

Side note: we might start doing some at-home facebook live/ig live cooking videos while we’re still closed. We’ll update accordingly!

A bit of news about our new dairy supplier

We’ve always been committed to making our ice cream with the best ingredients we can find. It’s why we only make strawberry ice cream in season with NC strawberries. It’s also why we make our own salted caramel, chocolate, and coffee bases from scratch instead of buying them pre-made. We make our own hot fudge with Callebaut Belgian chocolate, and we bake our cookies from scratch with cage-free NC eggs. You get the drift. So this is why we’ve made a big change this summer.

We’re happy to say that starting in July, we’re sourcing the dairy for our ice cream from Simply Natural Creamery in Ayden, NC. Their all-Jersey herd is free to roam and graze, and the feed they eat is grown directly on the farm. Jersey cows also produce a better quality milk that’s higher in protein, calcium, and butterfat, and there’s evidence that their protein (A2) is more easily digested by folks that may have problems with lactose.

We just took a trip out to the farm for their ice cream festival, where we met some of the staff and got plenty of pictures of their beautiful Jersey cows, soon to grace our site and shop. If you’d like to learn more about Simply Natural Creamery, NC Agriculture made a great video about them!

A big announcement for 2018

It’s a new year, and we’re looking to shake things up a bit at the olde ice cream shoppe. With that in mind, please forgive us for what we’re about to tell you.

…Are you ready? You might want to sit down.

We’re taking our Vietnamese Coffee ice cream off the menu. Now, before you get too upset, hear us out:

It’ll be back! Eventually. But more importantly, we plan to make a different coffee flavor for each month of 2018. This means we can work with lots more different local roasters, plan flavors we’ve been dreaming about for years, and have a little fun!

So, come in this week for our last run of Vietnamese Coffee…once it runs out, we’ll be introducing our first NEW coffee flavor, Coffee Toffee. Just in time for giving up your New Year’s resolutions, this ice cream will feature Bean Traders’ espresso blend and chopped Heath Bar pieces.

What’s your favorite coffee-flavored dessert? Let us know in the comments, and we’ll pick a random commenter to win a pint of Coffee Toffee!

Holiday closing, the return of flight night, and oh boy do we not blog much

Hello, friends! I’m sure you’ve noticed that we don’t make blog posts very often (or perhaps you didn’t notice, since, well, we don’t make blog posts very often.) But we’ve got news to share.

First:

We will be closed from December 23rd through January 1st, reopening on January 2nd. Get your gift cards and holiday pints soon!

Second:

Speaking of gifts: have you seen our new t-shirts? Or our tea tins and bagged coffee? And did we mention the gift cards? We’ve got a great selection of stocking stuffers this year! And if you haven’t tasted our new selection of teas from Art of Tea, come in and try a cup with a homemade pastry for $1 off this Saturday.

Third:

Since the weather was unseasonably warm this fall, we’re just now starting to plan this year’s flight nights. Our first flight night will be Monday, January 9th. Mr. and Mrs. Parlour are traveling back to Mrs. Parlour’s home island of Saba this Christmas, and we’ll be bringing back ingredients for a very special Caribbean-themed flight. We’ll update again with the menu and ticket link when we return from our trip!

And finally: eggnog ice cream goes on the menu this week! Made with spiced rum and Homeland Creamery nog. Happy holidays!

We’re hosting our first pop-up dinner!

Since our first flight night was such a success, we’re moving on to the next item on our agenda: hosting a dinner in our party room space! We’ve got a Thanksgiving-themed menu planned and we’ll be making LOTS of food. We don’t have the menu 100% set yet, but we’re very excited about the seitan roast recipe we’re working on: stuffed with butternut squash, wrapped in bacon, and baked inside a puff pastry shell. And yes, everything will be 100% vegan. Get your tickets here: https://theparlour.co/events/event/pre-thanksgiving/

We’ve got some good news…and some bad news.

Let’s start with the bad news first. Unfortunately, construction on our shop’s expansion is undergoing some major delays. Going through a brick wall in a multi-story building is pretty complicated. Since expanding the shop means cutting through a brick masonry wall, that also means finding a way to reinforce that wall and keep it holding up the building. The way to do that is to put in some steel beams and concrete footers under the floor, on firmly packed soil. (more…)