I came late to the local food party compared to some of the folks I’ve been privileged to meet or listen to in recent months. When I first became publisher of Edible Chesapeake last winter, I attended the annual meeting of all the publishers of all the Edible magazines then in existence (there were 24 six months ago, now there are 30!). I admit I was awestruck. There were people whose work I knew: Bruce Cole, who launched the legendary (in the compressed time frame of the Internet) Sauté Wednesday web site; Brian Halweil, whose writings had inspired me to delve into local eating a couple of years ago; and of course, Tracey Ryder and Carole Topalian, whose decision to use their communication and photography talents to celebrate the local foods of California’s Ojai Valley had launched the whole Edible phenomenon.

There were publishers I hadn’t heard of before, but who had long pedigrees in the local food movements in their respective regions. They were leading Slow Food convivia and working with Buy Fresh, Buy Local efforts and sitting on the boards of big, famous farmers markets. As if all that impressiveness weren’t enough, I went to the conference of the International Association of Culinary Professionals in April, where I was honored to share a panel with the executive directors of Slow Food USA and FoodRoutes Network, and to hear a riveting address given by farmer, author and activist Michael Ableman.

An amazing thrill ride, to be sure, but once the jitters passed, I found myself wondering what I was going to do in this world of visionaries. It seemed like there was so much change afoot, so much serious work to be done to really fix the things that have gone awry with the food system in America. But the more I’ve listened, and the more I’ve read, and the more I’ve talked to leaders of the local food community here in the Chesapeake and around the country, I’ve come to realize: we all have a role to play and we can all be visionaries by the simple act of choosing to buy and eat local. Publishing Edible Chesapeake might seem like a significant way to help connect our local food community. But the things I do on a daily basis—picking up my weekly share at our CSA farm, buying meats from local farms that raise animals on pasture, seeking out local honey and maple syrup at my co-op, and bringing in my glass bottles to recycle when I buy organic grass-fed milk—may be even more important to achieving my vision of living in a healthy environment and being able to feed my family great food for years to come.

Readers of Edible Chesapeake share this vision and make choices every day that help make it a reality. Even as you read about people doing “important” things in the pages of this and other publications, remember that little things count for just as much.

CHURN IT UP!

REALLY LOCAL ICE CREAM

There’s something about ice cream that makes for incredibly strong food memories, most of them wonderful. Maybe it’s the way ice cream often stands on its own, a course all by itself, crowning a cone or commanding a bowl without adornment other than some fresh fruit or a few nuts. Maybe our memories are triggered by the way ice cream slakes a particular sort of summertime thirst, being cold and wet but creamy and filling at the same time. If we’re eating outside, the contrast of the cold inside our mouths to the hot, humid air on our skin can be both shocking and satisfying.

Perhaps we remember ice cream because of the special attention we pay to it while eating—turning the cone this way and that, shoring up a sliding side with a swipe of the tongue, racing to the other side now to catch a drip with our lips. When it’s served in a bowl, some of us spend an inordinate amount of time stirring the melting dessert, watching it dribble in thick streams from the spoon back to the bowl, before we pour it into our mouths and let it velvet its way down our throats. Ice cream is the most luxurious of simple pleasures.

Ahhh, but ice cream can also trigger melancholy, as the last crystallized chunk in your bowl loses cohesion and melts, or as you hear the sound of the scoop scraping the sides of the gallon bucket and you know there’s not enough left to even spread on your cone with a butter knife. Of course, the worst ice cream memories come from the dreaded dropped cone. Few things are sadder than watching the ants come snaking along in their line, lapping up the creamy puddle as it seeps into the sidewalk.

But take heart. Our Chesapeake region is overflowing in good ice cream and there’s more wherever that dropped scoop came from. The places these Edible Chesapeake writers visited are just a sampling, to whet your appetite. This summer, look around in your own neighborhood and you’re sure to find a place to create sweet new ice cream memories. —Renee Brooks Catacalos

Susan Soorenko has fond memories of childhood and ice cream. In Philadelphia, where she grew up, all the cousins lived around the corner from their grandparents. “On summer nights we all ended up there, the kids playing, the parents talking as it got darker,” she says.

Across the street was an old-fashioned sweet shop that sold penny candy, odds and ends, and ice cream. Soorenko recalls that her grandmother would always send her over for an ice cream cone. “Susie, bring me a peach,” she would say.

It is a memory of family and flavor that has inspired her Moorenko’s ice cream shops.

Believe it or not, she was a fitness trainer for 25 years. But one of her goals when she started an ice cream business was to create a place, as she says, “to keep an eye on my teenagers without them realizing it.”

She has succeeded brilliantly. Customers are drawn by her funky shops (cheap to decorate, she points out). They drift in and out of Arts Alley in the revitalizing downtown Silver Spring area, or apologize when the retro chairs at the McLean store occasionally break as little kids get overexcited by the prospect of an ice cream cone. And her sons, no longer teenagers, are still hanging out. The oldest manages wholesale accounts and procurement, and the younger son, still in college, will spend the summer in production.

“But,” she laughs, “everyone dips!” And that includes Soorenko herself. Watch her in action, negotiating with a young customer who can’t decide between peanut butter and chocolate, but is sure to end up with a memorable ice cream cone.

Moorenko’s ice cream is ultra premium, between 17 and 22 percent butterfat and Soorenko has always used hormone-free milk. “It just seems unnecessary to give cows hormones,” she says. She works with a Virginia creamery that deals with small farms and can create a custom mix for her shops. “Their farms are too small to manage the paperwork for organic certification, but they are also too small to administer hormones, which is an expensive and complicated process,” she says.

Moorenko’s flavors are also premium. Soorenko sources local fruits in season and strives to recreate intense European-style flavors. “In the spring and summer, we do watermelon and cantaloupe sorbets, and our chocolates and coffees are intense.”

Her flavor inspirations come from middle-of-the-night brainstorms, and seasonal or holiday ingredients. A malty Chocolate Guinness was the flavor of the week during St. Patrick’s Day. New ideas also come from customers, who make recommendations and requests.

There aren’t many businesses, says Soorenko, where people come in the door happy. At Moorenko’s they may come in happy with anticipation, but they leave even happier with the reality of the extraordinary ice cream they’ve just eaten.

— Claudia Kousoulas

Not too many years ago I lived in this farming community best known as home to many Amish and Mennonite families. On my way home from work I would often stop at the Lapp Valley Farm to pick up fresh milk or cheese. Any trip to the farm would be incomplete, however, without including a creamy scoop of their locally famous ice cream. Whenever I could spare the time, I would enjoy mine relaxing on the wooden porch while a pleasant breeze blew across the corn field, and the resident peacock put on a colorful show!

On a recent visit, the peacock squawked loudly and fully spread his majestic feathers, as if to welcome me back. It’s no accident that a visitor feels at home here. Keeping things local and family- centered is clearly the cornerstone of the Lapp Valley Farm’s success. The peaceful 60-acre farm has been in the Lapp family since the Depression, and four generations currently live on the land, including Benuel and Lena Lapp, who have run the farm for 32 years, Benuel’s 92-yearold father, and the Lapps’ son, Dave, who helps to keep the busy operation running smoothly.

The ice-cream making part of the family dairy business began in 1975 when Benuel started making hand-cranked ice cream for bus groups of tourists who traveled to Lancaster County. He had taken a well-known ice-cream making course at Penn State University. “I took that course two years before Ben and Jerry took it. We are committed to keeping our ice cream right here in the community… and, well, we all know what Ben and Jerry chose to do….”

Holstein cows originally supplied the milk for the ice cream, but in 1996 the family began to raise Jersey cows instead because they produce milk higher in butterfat, calcium, and protein. This accounts for the rich creaminess that has made the Lapp Valley Farm ice cream so popular. While not an organic farm, Dave Lapp explained that the cows roam freely in the grassy pastures whenever possible. Their diet is supplemented with silage and haylage, and no growth hormones are used to increase milk production. Visitors are welcome to watch the afternoon milking process in the new milking barn, just down the path from the large building that houses the ice cream shop and drive-up window, where folks can buy milk, ice cream, eggs, cheese and butter.

Of the sixteen flavors of ice cream offered, children often go for cookies and cream or chocolate chip cookie dough while senior citizens frequently choose maple walnut. Even so, pure and simple vanilla remains the all-time favorite flavor at the Lapp Valley Farm. While the farm is off the beaten path, it is well worth a visit to take a step back in time.

—Diane Williams

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Fear the turtle? The only thing you’ll have to fear after tasting the house-made ice cream at the University of Maryland’s ice cream shop—The Dairy, found at the College Park campus’s Turner Hall—is a sudden spike in your calorie intake. Beware: It’s addictive.

Hall—is a sudden spike in your calorie intake. Beware: It’s addictive. This ice cream, which used to be made by the school’s agriculture department, can be purchased by the scoop, half gallon or 3- gallon tubs. It’s also featured in old-school ice cream parlor preparations such as banana splits, sundaes, floats and ice cream sodas.

While the milk now comes from Cloverland Green Spring Dairy in Baltimore, the university’s agriculture department sells its milk to this dairy, and some of that milk and cream ultimately makes its way back to The Dairy for use in its ice cream.

The Dairy sports the traditional white décor found in many parlors, with festive neon signs and giant plastic ice cream cones to serve as inspiration. While there are plenty of seats, the best way to enjoy these creamy concoctions is to step out on the lawn and grab a bench or plop down in the grass and release your inner college kid. On a recent visit, scoops of vanilla and Final Exam Cram—cappuccino ice cream mixed with crushed chocolate cookies—were delicious, but it was the half gallon of Fear the Turtle that stole our hearts at home. The white chocolate ice cream swirled with caramel and pecans definitely makes the grade.

In 2003, dining services took over the production of the smallbatch ice creams. Jeff Russo, the man tasked with ice cream and flavor development, says the care that goes into The Dairy’s gourmet flavors, such as Fear the Turtle, Final Exam Cram (Russo’s favorite flavor) and Spring Break, a tropical fruit ice cream splashed with Myers dark rum, is what makes them special.

“We make the flavoring bases from scratch in the bakery,” he says. “Ganaches, fresh fruit purees and syrups—it costs more to do it this way, but the end result is worth the extra effort and expense.” The current gourmet flavors and the more garden-variety selections such as butter pecan and pistachio seem to appease the masses, but Russo and his taste-testers are ever striving to make more enchanting flavors.

“This week, we ran a test batch of a new flavor named in honor of UM Dining Services Director Patricia Higgins. [It’s] called Higaberry—raspberry gelato with shaved bittersweet chocolate folded in,” Russo says. “We believe this will be a very popular flavor this summer.”

Sounds like it could even make summer school bearable.

—Rina Rapuano

Visiting Broom’s Bloom, you’re first struck by the vista of the Dallam family farm, which dates back to the early 1700’s and has supported nine generations of Dallams. Inside, the ice cream parlor is reminiscent of an old-time country store, its large counter packed with homemade fruit pies, biscuits, brownies, and cakes. But atmosphere aside, the undeniable draw is the ice cream, evidenced by the register-to-the-door line of customers waiting for their sugar-and-cream fix.

Shop owners David and Kate Dallam have been milking cows and making artisanal ice creams for much of the past 10 years. They feature seasonal fruits in their ice creams, and the changes in their menu reflect what’s best and freshest in Harford County produce. That’s the reason flavors like peach are only available at one time of the year. “It’s just not worth it, if the peaches aren’t in season,” Kate explains.

The dairy offers more than a dozen flavors. On a recent visit, I spent several minutes poring over the selection, afraid to make the wrong choice. But as I started to sample, it became clear that making a bad choice was not an option. Each variety I tried was full of bold flavor and decadently creamy—their ice creams contain 16 percent butterfat. I finally settled on caramel cashew, and that was definitely one of the best decisions I’ve made in recent memory. Further sweetening the deal, Broom’s Bloom old-fashioned ice creams come at old-fashioned prices. A “small” cone is an 8-ounce serving and costs $1.84 (tax included).

Be sure to browse the Dallam’s hand-picked selection of foods and seasonings from local farmers who share their philosophy of responsible and sustainable farming. You can pick up a little of everything—Cybee’s Honey, Whiskey Island blue crab salsa and other sauces, locally produced meats from Woolsey Farm and Level Farm, in-season produce and flowers from Harford County farmers, eggs, and local spices. Broom’s Bloom also sells its own pork and several types of farmstead cheddar cheeses.

Enjoy your Broom’s Bloom goodies outside on the porch or at the picnic tables, and take in the picturesque country backdrop. It’s easy to fritter away an afternoon perusing the store, having a peanut butter and jelly sandwich like your grandma would make, and savoring an ice cream cone. That’s what I did.

Then keep your fingers crossed that the Dallam family never tires of doing what they do so well.

—Stacy Brooks