*Note: I try to write these as if I were speaking to you. I like to do them this way, because I can flow in and out of my Passaic mannerisms since I consider other forms of speaking lacking.

Jenny and I are glad we got to travel during the winter especially since who knows when we will be able to do so again. The world is fucked. Back in March when we originally planned on reopening for the year we had a series of flavors meant to highlight our travels. Now that we’ve been open for a bit, we can finally do some of those flavors. Expect to be transported to Vienna, Milan, Sardinia, Madrid, and Andalusia.

VIENNA

I used to go to Austria as a child to visit family friends, but that was way on the other side of the country. So I’ve never been to Vienna until this year, and I hope to go back plenty of times in the future. It was such an easy and clean city. The subway ran frequently, it was easy to ride a bike around, and there are so many museums and various things going on. The quality of life there seems to be a lot better than most major cities in America especially the ones I’ve lived in like New York, Washington D.C., San Francisco, and Los Angeles. In terms of the food I’m big on Austrian/German food. I grew up on it and my first internship out of culinary school was at Wallsé in New York. Eating schnitzel, Sacher, linzer, wurst, and kraut are as normal to me as burgers and fries. Eating a pile of broiled pork knuckles feels like home. So I was totally in heaven there; plus a few food stalls stayed open until 4am. Chocolate Raspberry Gelato is the flavor we are making to take us back to Vienna. Sacher torte is usually with apricot, but there’s a few versions with raspberry and that’s more my speed. If you haven’t been to Austria, for sure go even if you don’t like skiing. The standards are high, the land beautiful, they’re heavy into music, and most people have wit.

SARDINIA

“I want to go to a place that’s kicked and screamed and said ‘fuck you’ to even the most brutal of people.” And so we went to Sardinia. I can’t describe to you the smell upon arriving in Cagliari. It smelled just like my family home island in the Philippines. It was this mix of island salt air, musk, and burning wood. I looked at Jenny and said, “I’m home.” I’d be ignorant to say I’m not a romantic. I love history and sometimes I go to places and imagine the weight of geological and human time. Sardinia is a Mediterranean island that’s currently part of Italy. Back in the day they were their own thing, then some Carthaginians came, Romans, Vandals, Romans again, Spaniards, and so on and so on. The beautiful thing about the island aside from its coast and interior was that to me it felt like it was all those things and still apart. Still autonomous at least in spirit. You could stand on the south coast, west coast, and east coast, and you felt that there was always going to be some new asshole coming along, but thats fine— Sardinia will always be. The highlight of our time there was being in Mamoiada for their carnival-type celebration where some of the men wear wooden masks and go from one fire to the other and enact a ritual. Things like this and supporting remote tribal people around the world are to me the key to the future. A time before the marching of soldiers and zealots imposed abstractions on the human spirit. People there, whether during special rituals or the mundane every day, were so “whatever”. They didn’t give a shit who you were and only one day a year did they wear masks as opposed to how some cultures do so on a daily basis. In some places I’ve traveled the dreams of the society and people and actual everyday action aren’t that far off. Places like Sardinia and Finnish Sápmi Lapland are those. The food was amazing whether it be pasta, desserts, fruits, and seafood. Food there was a contrast to here. There everything is pretty good so it is and isn’t a big deal. Here there’s some good food, but nothing amazing so as a result everything is always talked up your ass like some avocado toast . I hope to go back to Sardinia one day preferably when it’s warm. The flavor highlighting our zig zagging of Sardinia is what I call Tunisian Almond. The flavor profile is a common thing about the Mediterranean world, but it tastes like my time in Sardinia especially the interior. It holds the spirit of the sweet and rough island.

A proper pizza. One of the most beautiful and simplistic things man has managed to conjure.

MILAN

In Milan we basically only ate pizza and drank espresso. Well, that’s not true; we had a lot of risotto and giant hunks of veal. But we ate one giant pizza a day each and drank generous amounts of espresso. Aside from that we hit up some museums and just hung around on the streets. Milan gets a lot of shit, but I enjoyed my time there. It always had a buzz going on and you walk around and feel like a millionaire even though you ain’t shit. I can’t make a pizza flavor because that would be disgusting, but I have a few things in mind. One, of course, being a special espresso flavor. The kind to get you wired throughout the day.

MADRID

Madrid is another city people talk bad about though I enjoyed it too. I was curious to see where the assholes that invaded and colonized my family’s home island came from and I was impressed at its smallness. I don’t just mean in terms of size but vibe. It didn’t feel like a massive place where you’d get overwhelmed. We ate a lot of canned seafood and suckling pig. I drank a lot of beer as well maybe occasionally getting lost and just sitting in a plaza watching people go by. Oh, and I ate churros and drank hot chocolate every single day. This place was open 24 hours! The flavor highlighting Madrid is our Torrone Gelato. It had to be that since there was a damn torrone store every other block.

ANDALUSIA

Before going to Spain, Andalusia was my image of the country. Maybe it was always on postcards and movies, and so that is what I assumed. It kind of reminded me of some urban parts of the Philippines in that the streets were narrow and the smell of exhaust was always present. But despite that the energy was prime. Seville is a gem of a city, and Cordoba was quaint. In both towns you can zig zag through streets and end upon a plaza where everyone is hanging and drinking beer cheaper than water. We hit up a few old relics of the Moorish past and ate a lot and frequently. The food was mostly what I expected which means it was good. A flavor to highlight our time there is tricky. It has to feel exotic but also familiar and bright. Definitely something with saffron.

HOME

I always thought of our business as another way to travel. I’ve been going here and there since I was a child and have lived abroad. I was very fortunate and inherited this culture from my mother who managed to travel even with very little money. The world is too crazy and interesting not to go around. At the same time, I’m a Jersey boy— there is no doubt about that. So managing those two things means I’m pretty critical of our country. But I don’t mean that in a negative way. It’s like when you’ve been doing something your whole life one way, and then you meet someone else like an Italian or Algerian dude and they show you another way that’s easier and more fun. You can make better use of your time hanging with family or making your life and the others around you better. It’s far too common for Americans to put their heads to the ground or into their devices and go through the motions the media and society tell them. Ultimately it isn’t necessary to travel to improve our society, but since we inherently lack the ability to look at the wider picture with a critical lens traveling and interacting is like a shortcut. The hard way would be to invest in the creative abilities of our people nurtured in an environment that is going to support them. That is not happening.

Here in New Jersey and New York especially you commute via bus or train into your jobs, and how many times are they late? In Austria or Finland that would be a public shame. Even in Italy the god damn trains run on time. Italy! Plus America has that weird thing where we all think the people in power and in the media are assholes, yet we are shocked when there’s a scandal proving this. Meanwhile since I was a kid I’ve known Italians or Cameroonians who knew this as a daily fact and their society revolved around avoiding those assholes as much as possible, because all they do is divide us. Society can function outside these motherfuckers. I’m not saying to dismiss it all and do nothing, but we are currently lost in a malaise. Our society is stagnant and I have to say again that society isn’t the politicians, the media, and what we post on social media. Our society is something constantly moving and what we offer to our family, friends, neighbors, and to the world. A flag or brand merely represent society, and they aren’t it. If I made gelato like how our society is currently functioning, then the chocolate would look like Hersheys and cost $8 for a cup of dogshit. I’d sprinkle pretzels, relish, and kimchi onto it and beg everyone to like our post on instagram. Chocolate should either taste better than the chocolate from 5 years ago, or taste just as good. We want this country to be around for another 100 years I assume, but it’s crumbling both physically and mentally. Once this coronavirus bullshit has stabilized I hope everyone can go and travel. And not in that typical tourist manner where you take some pics and eat shitty food. Gather ideas, meet cool people, meet stupid people, get drunk and laze around on a corner with some strangers, learn to curse in Finnish or Arabic, learn how others organize their society for the wider benefit, how they are able to make well-made roads, and take a god damn train that runs on time. Then bring all these experiences and ideas home, and let’s make our society better. I’m so god damn sick of going somewhere and they have it better. We’re fucking Americans; we are supposed to be the best. This is New Jersey. We think everyone else in other states are a bunch of assholes. It’s not good enough to say those things. It has to become reality. A new paradigm. This is my feeling everyday when I walk into the store and crank out the gelato. So I hope this week you can enjoy the few random flavors from our travels.

Standing on the shore of a Roman lake