Second Hand Ice Cream Cones

Ice cream in the movies - that's something I've noticed a lot over the years. We are real movie buffs in my family and given my passion for ice cream making it's not therefore surprising that I have noted many movie scenes with an ice cream theme.

One of my favorite movies with an ice cream theme is "Come Clean" a short film by Laurel & Hardy made in 1931. The scene where Stan and Ollie go to the ice cream parlor for some chocolate ice cream is a classic - check out the scene extract on my ice cream comedy page.

Stan Laurel was a comic genius of that there's no doubt. His use of the surreal was way ahead of its time. A good example and one that relates to ice cream is one I saw just the other day ... they are in a fix as usual and go into a pawnbroker's shop.

As they come out Ollie says "Why did you have to ask if they had any second hand ice cream cones?" Most ice cream cones of course get eaten completely but should one survive intact, can you imagine what a second-hand one would look like? The mind boggles!

I don't recall anyone else ever referring to the idea of a second hand ice cream cone in a movie - such was the comic genius of Laurel & Hardy. Thank you boys - I'm sure you loved ice cream as much as the rest of us :)

Ice Cream Recipes Facebook Fans

My ice cream recipes Facebook page has only been going a short time but is proving a fascinating and rewarding experience. How could that be? Well I wasn't sure at first what the worth would be in writing about ice cream recipes on a Facebook page but it is now clear, even after only a short time, that people of all ages and from all over the world are keen to learn more about how to make ice cream.

There has been a wide variety of ice cream making questions posted to date and I try my best to answer as many as I can. Here are some of the things I've been asked about ....

gelato recipes

orange ice cream recipe

real vanilla ice cream recipe

cola ice cream recipe

ice cream recipes without corn, milk and eggs

vegan ice cream recipes

Interestingly enough, when I do post answers to questions, people often post back and say 'thank you'. What a nice bunch the Facebook ice cream fans are!

For The Love Of Ice Cream - With Yahoo!

My passion for ice cream goes way beyond just making ice cream, creating ice cream recipes and updating my ice cream website .... I love to study visitor statistics to the website and understand who is looking for what, where from, how and why. It is an amazing thing to have an insight into the minds of people on a given subject - in this case ICE CREAM.

Having study my Google Analytics reports for several years, I am familiar with quite a depth in level of data - where the visitors come from, in what numbers, which main keywords they use, the most popular content and the most popular sources of traffic (search engines, referring sites etc).

One statistic that has been consistent for a long time now is that Google is the most important search engine to provide traffic to my site; day after day after day, Google outscores all the other search engines by a LONG way. There has not been a single day in the last 4 years where another search engine has outscored Google with traffic to my website .... until recently.

On 28 July I had a 'double take' when I looked at the stats. There was something I had never seen before nor had I expected to see.

Yahoo! sent a whopping 28,000 visitors in 24 hours! That's 4.5 times MORE visitors than Google usually provides daily at this time of year. What's more, it didn't cost me a penny!

How come? Well, because I spotted this massive traffic boost on the actual day whilst it was happening, I was able to do a little 'live' digging and, yes, I found out how and why Yahoo! had done this.

I went to http://www.yahoo.com/ and there staring me in the face was 'Trending Now' .... a small list of keywords that, according to Yahoo!, were the most popular that day. At number 3 was 'ice cream recipes'. So I clicked on the link and it sent me to the Yahoo! results page for that keyword search. At number 1 was my site - bingo! I had found the answer to the puzzle. Quite simply, people using Yahoo! that day were just intrigued as to why ice cream recipes would be popular and, assuming it might be some interesting news item, they click through and visited the first site listed - mine! So there you have it ... simple and honest curiosity was the key - and what's important, it was from people who perhaps never normally think about ice cream recipes.

So if anyone tells you not to take Yahoo! seriously in your Internet marketing strategy, stop and think again. You now know better. Thank you Yahoo!

Rainforest Fruit, 9 ball pool & Roald Dahl

So .... what's the connection between a rainforest expedition to Madagascar, the 2007 9 ball pool World Championship and the author Roald Dahl? The answer .... fruit! One of the most important ingredients in ice cream making is fruit and because of that I always seem to prick up my ears whenever fruit is discussed in conversation around me or on tv. In the last week, fruit - especially the peach - has been the common theme in my everyday life.

First, the movie 'James and the Giant Peach' (based on the wonderful book by Roald Dahl) was on tv a couple of days ago, then I heard my husband and son discussing the recent 9 ball pool world championship and how it was won by a rank outsider, Englishman Daryl Peach. How's that for a great memorable name for a sports champion!

Then, yesterday, I chanced upon a fascinating tv documentary called 'Madagascar - A Treetop Odyssey' which followed the work of a group of scientists studying the Madagascar Rainforest - one of the last unspoilt rainforests on earth. They were looking for - and indeed discovering - new species of animals and plants.

I had tuned into the program about 1/2 way through and had only 10 minutes to spare before having to prepare dinner but in that quick 10 minutes what I saw made me smile - it was all about fruit. One of the scientists tasks was to look for and test new fruits found growing in the rainforest and he was interviewed whilst cutting and tasting some of what they had found. Apparently whatever he found to be an interesting new taste would then be passed on and recommended for commercial ice cream and yogurt making. There was one new fruit which the scientist had tested and described as milky and creamy yet exotic (it looked to me a little like a lime in size and colour) and about which he was very excited because of how well it might work with strawberries in combination for a new ice cream. I listened hard for the name of the fruit but alas none was mentioned. Perhaps before very long and if the scientist is right, we will see it being cultivated (though not at the expense of rainforest depletion and damage) and sold on a larger scale. If and when my local grocery store has it on the shelves I aim to be the first to buy some and try in my homemade ice cream making!