Greetings, and welcome to this week's email newsletter from the friendly folks at Mad Maggie's Ice Cream!

As I wrote about in the last newsletter, the Boston Magazine article has really seemed to grab folks' attention, as we've had a pretty steady stream of new customers coming by and telling us that they heard about us through that article. This is nice to see, as despite the advertising we do in the local papers, people seem to unconciously screen out advertisements when reading the papers, but a tiny mention in a real article works wonders in getting our name out there.

We're definitely deep into summer season, as we have a full array of fruit flavors in stock. I'm happy to report that our Fresh Strawberry is a hot seller.

I don't know if we actually make money on this flavor, as we put over 12 pounds of strawberries in each batch. With the hour or so it takes to pick the strawberries, another hour to clean and slice them, and probably another hour of preparing the fruit and actually making the batch of ice cream, we invest around 4 hours of labor for each 5 gallons of ice cream, so I don't think we'll be retiring based on income from this flavor! Still, I think it's a wonderful flavor, and I'm happy to offer it despite the labor involved.

[ Late update: I used the last of our fresh picked strawberries to make one last batch of this last night -- come and get it before it's gone until next year! ]

Each fall, the National Ice Cream Retailers Association holds its annual convention at which it conducts its "Ice Cream Clinic" to judge the best flavors. Vanilla is judged every year, and Chocolate and Strawberry are judged on alternate years. (Last year, we won a blue ribbon for our Double Dark Chocolate.) This is a "Strawberry" year, and I'd love to submit a sample of this fresh strawberry for the contest -- maybe we can add another blue ribbon to our collection!

We also received a call from friend David, of Turkey Hill Farm in Haverhill that the fresh blueberries and raspberries are now ready for picking, so we'll be taking a trip there in the next few days to get some berries. Look for fresh blueberry and raspberry flavors soon. And please take a drive to Haverhill if you want fresh berries for a pie or fresh baked muffins! David runs a wonderful, clean farm, and he and Nancy, his wife, are very nice folks to deal with. Make sure to tell him "Mad Maggie's" sent you!

Mad Maggie's Merchandise

We have had a terrible time getting a summer t-shirt design, so to help fill the gap, I designed my own using the graphic from our first season's shirts. You can buy it online by going to our website, then clicking on the T-shirt link. Or, just visit http://www.cafepress.com/madmaggies/directly.

Note that we don't make any money on these, as they're being printed by Cafepress.com, and when I set up our store, I set our markup to $0.00 -- so you get them at the lowest price I can get them for!

I also designed a neat little Mad Maggie's Flavor mug. Check it out! Buy one, and you can remember some great summertime thoughts while you're drinking your coffee on some cold morning next winter!

Fresh Whipped Cream

We're experimenting with using fresh whipped cream on our sundaes at the store. For our first couple of seasons, we've used canned "whipped cream". I put that in quotation marks, as the whipped topping has some type of artificial ingredients that make it stand up better. I don't know exactly what's in it, but I suspect it's similar to "Cool Whip" topping.

Many friends of mine in the ice cream business use CO2 charged topping canisters to dispense their own "made on site" whipped cream, and they claim that the taste is better, and that it's all natural and more environmentally friendly than the using all of those pre-charged metal cans, which end up in a landfill.

Making it on site is definitely more work for us -- we have two dispensers, and when one is empty, we need to use the other one, *and* make sure we disassemble, clean, sanitize, and refill the empty one before the next one runs out. A lot more work than just grabbing another ready-to-go can out of the fridge! There is also a slight cost savings, as those cans are somewhat expensive, and we go through quite a few over the course of a week.

So, we're giving it a couple of week trial. If you come by the store, and get a sundae or other item with whipped cream, let us know what you think! If it doesn't work, we'll switch back to the artificial topping, but I sure hope that using fresh whipped cream ends up being a no-brainer for us!

Traffic Woes

A warning to those of you who like to enjoy your ice cream on the lawn out front: We had a minor traffic accident at the store this past week. A car came careening up route 28, swerving from side to side. The car rolled into our parking lot, and skidded to a stop on the grass. I ran out, and was happy to see that there was no damage and no one was hurt.

I asked the driver what happened, and he said he didn't know: "I just looked up, and there was a pine tree in front of me. I swerved around it, and there was another, then another!"

I reached into his car, and took the air freshener off of his rearview mirror. They really shouldn't be allowed to sell those things to blonde drivers!

Brownie Blast!

Two weekends ago, I started to make our "Big City Brownie" flavor, which we had let run out for a week or so (I find that new flavors tend to sell fast initially, then sales slows down, so we sometimes let flavors "rest" for a week or two before restocking them...)

Two of my team, Jenny and Melissa, were working the windows and when they heard I was planning to make it, argued that I should leave out the walnuts and add real brownies instead. So, a few adjustments to the flavoring, a couple of quarts of brownies, and a late decision to add chocolate chips as well, and we now have a flavor we're calling "Brownie Blast".

This is brownie batter flavored ice cream, with big, chunky pieces of fudgy brownies (the same ones we use in our Brownie Sundaes), chocolate chips, and a thick, gooey streak of fudge -- it's a real mess to make! I wanted to add the walnuts too, but the girls wouldn't let me!

As Jenny (our sign artist...) made up the sign for this, I told her to make sure to leave some room where we could write "On special -- $1 for any size", as that's what we do with all of our slow movers to get rid of them, and I was convinced that this flavor was going to be a dog.

Boy, was I wrong! We went through 4 tubs of this in a weekend, as people really flipped over it after tasting a sample. I ended up making 4 batches of this in the first week, and it's selling like crazy! I'm not a big chocolate lover, but I've been eating it, and it really *is* a nice flavor.

Three things I don't like about it: - It needs a better name. If you have a suggestion, please tell one of the kids at the window. - It's a pain in the neck to make! - I *still* say it needs walnuts...

The "New Flavor" competition at this year's NICRA convention is for "Best Cookie or Other Baked Goods Flavor", so you can bet we'll be submitting this one, hopefully with a snazzier name.

Ask for a taste the next time you're at the store!

The Appearance of the "Ugly Customers"

As our little stand gets more publicity, and is getting better known, we've noticed a funny side effect. Over our first couple of seasons, we've probably been able to recognize better than half of our customers as regulars -- we might not know everybody's name, but we would see a lot of familiar faces week to week. I like to think that this is a good thing, as it made the store a friendly place, as customers know us, and we feel like we're constantly greeting old friends.

This year, with the press that we've received, we've seen a lot of new, unfamiliar faces. While that's great for business and we're happy to see the new visitors, it's definitely brought in a different class of customers -- some of them very demanding and unsympathetic when something doesn't go 100% right.

As one example of this, I was helping the kids out at the window one night, when I noticed a man reaching in the serving window and pulling napkin after napkin from the inside dispenser -- I'd bet he had 30 napkins by the time he was done. I asked him if the dispensers on the counter were empty, and he very curtly responded that "I've got about 9 people over here, and we want enough napkins!"

The followup to this was pretty predictable: After that party left, there were probably half of those napkins littering our picnic table area, completely unused, and tossed carelessly on the ground, even though they were sitting within a few feet of the trash container.

Large food companies like McDonalds and such have enough overhead built into their pricing so that waste like this doesn't affect them, but believe me, when I see someone behaving rudely and acting as if they're entitled to take more than they can reasonably use, it bothers me, as I know that the waste of those 15 or so napkins probably took a fair bite out of whatever profit I made on that party's order (paper supplies for a food business like ours are surprisingly expensive!)

Other customers are unreasonably short of patience if the person waiting on them does anything wrong. Many seem to have the attitude that because they're paying for something, it gives them the right to embarrass or belittle the person waiting on them if they do something as innocuous as putting chocolate jimmies on when they customer asked for rainbow (egads! How *could* you make such an egregious mistake!?)

The fact that the person waiting on them is sixteen years old, is working their first "real" job, and is probably feeling enough stress looking at the growing line at the window doesn't seem to bother some of these people -- some seem to feel entitled to be rude. I really hate it when anyone treats "my kids" like this, as I know all of them are trying hard, and dealing with the attitudes of difficult customers can really upset them .

Of course, I bite my tongue and grin and bear it, but I always wonder how people acquire an attitude that it's ok to behave badly and to treat others with such disrespect.

Naturally, I know that none of our wonderful newsletter readers would fall into this class of customers! There's probably nothing newsworthy in that whole section, but it feels like it was good therapy for me to write it, so thanks for listening to me vent! ;^)

Staff Profile

[ Note that this feature seems to have attracted several of my serving team to subscribe to this newsletter so that they can see what I have to say about them. Guess I've got to start watching what I write here! ]

This week's newsletter profiles team member Janelle.

Janelle is one of our "older" kids, as she's entering her Junior year at Westfield State College. She's probably one of our hardest working team members, as she not only sucks up all of the hours she can garner at our store, but also manages to work some significant shifts at The Rugged Bear clothing store in Andover. Frequently, she'll work a full day shift there, then come to our shop and put in another 4 to 6 hours during our busiest times. We call her "The Energizer Bunny", as she's a bundle of energy and seems to be much happier when the store is busy than when it's slow.

I don't normally hire kids who are past their Junior years in high school, as most college kids want to start late in the spring, and leave early in August, but Janelle impressed me last year by calling me early, in mid February, to inquire about a job. Then, when she came to the store for an interview, I had unplugged one of our noisy freezers so that I could talk to her without shouting and asked her to remind me to plug it back in when she left. I forgot all about it, but Janelle came back to the store a few minutes after she left and reminded me to plug it back in -- a good sign, I figured!

Plus, she's one of the few non-blondes on the team, so we needed her for balance ;^) (Obligatory Blonde Joke: What do you call a brunette in the middle of two blondes? The interpreter!)

So far, I'd say my intuition has been good, as I made Janelle a team leader this year, and she does an outstanding job keeping busy and in making sure that the younger kids stay on task. She's also learned how to run our batch freezer, and is slowly spending more time making ice cream as she learns the recipes and techniques of good ice cream smithing!

Janelle is a soccer player for Westfield State, and is obviously a good athlete, since she spent all of last summer sitting around, eating ice cream, without doing the summer conditioning runs her coach had assigned her, then started up her busy soccer training in mid-August and reported that she had no problems keeping up with the rest of her teammates. It's nice to be young and in shape, I guess!

Janelle lives in Andover, and is an AHS graduate. I've been teasing her in the past month, as she's got a new boyfriend and has definitely had that "I'm in love" glow about her. I told her that she reminded me of Mary Poppins -- I expect to see her out in the parking lot, whistling tunes with a blue bird perched on her finger one of these days!

She's definitely one of my favorites (I know, I seem to say that about all of my kids...!), as she's got a great smile, a bubbly, outgoing personality, and I know that the store is in good, responsible hands when she's around.

She likes to refer to herself as "the hot chick", and here's a link to a photo of her ,along with her partner in crime, Liz, from earlier this season (Janelle is on the left):

Make sure to say hi to her if you find her serving you the next time you're visiting. (And tell her she looks like she's in love -- she loves hearing it!)

Newsletter Coupon

I'm amazed that no one took me up on last month's offer to have my serving team do the "Chicken Dance"! So I'll keep it easy this month.

Print out this newsletter, bring it to the store, and we'll give you a free small cone with any other purchase! One offer per newsletter reader, please!

That's it for this week. Thanks for reading, and we sure hope to see you at the store!