Dulce de Leche Dolcatta

Dulce de Leche Dolcatta. How can anyone achieve a better harmony of flavors? We made our first batch of the year this week. It starts with a dulce de leche gelato, folded with fresh strawberrys (cooked up with sugar so they don't freeze) and finally, mixed with broken pieces of merengue. We first made this flavor in Buenos Aires under the direction of a wonderful maestro heladero, Aversa, who has been making gelato for over 30 years. When done right, this gelato sings solos in your mouth - "Hallelujah" "Hallelujah" it says...it says...

Trails of Luis

Well, we just returned from Dulles airport and Luis is in the air returning to Buenos Aires, Argentina. He was here for 10 days while Violeta was off for her spring break. We had a wonderful time and already miss him and his presence. He is a true artist. These photos were taken by him while he was in and out of the store. He cooked wonderful meals at night - true italian simplicity. We had risotto with shrimp and calamari one night, another meal was fusilli topped with fresh tomato, garlic and basil, as always, mixed with a little bit of extra virgin olive oil (a nice one from Crete) and salt, and another night he roasted a nice piece of cod, wrapped in a purple cabbage leaf and topped with sauteed mushrooms and shallots. By the way, Luis is responsible for our new name, Dolcezza. Gracias Luis! Te queremos mucho!

This is the way we start each day at Dolcezza. A finely crafted latte - a double shot of a 29 second pull of toscano espresso, compliments of the rock stars at CCC, combined perfectly with finely frothed milk, which has been whipped up and is smooth and creamy - We then combine the two into a warm triple fired italian FAC porelain cup.

note: we have also been known to drink shot after shot of creamy espresso until we get so fired up we start slapping each other around the store. we then bring ourselves down gently with 5 oz. cappuccinos. what a life. what a life.

Blood Oranges at their Peak

The blood oranges in the last couple of weeks have been amazing. I cut them open and just sit there looking at them before realizing I need to run them through the juicer to make exquisite, pulp-filled sorbetto. It is part of what makes using fresh fruit so rewarding, because we get to watch the fruits unfold through their maturation process - as they begin to ripen, then reach their peak, then go away, only to come back in the next season. It is similar to a wine or coffee, where so much depends on the farmer, the soil, the rain, the heat, etc... & how it will always somehow be different from year to year. It makes the whole process feel more alive, more organic and there is always an element of surprise when the next season rolls around. Is there really any other way to do it?!

Gracias Luis por las fotos, son bellisimas! Te extraniamos.

Meyer Lemons

Meyer Lemons. Somewhat of a cross between a lemon and a mandarin. Sweet and acidic with a nice thin aromatic skin. This weekend I spun up a sorbetto with just the right amount of vodka to give it a bit more body.
I squeezed the last kilo of juice and set it aside in the freezer to save it for a special flavor. Dark Chocolate with Meyer Lemon. I will be doing this in the next week or two. I kinda like to wait until the fruit is out of season, then pull out the special little frozen bag of squeezed juice and make something with it. It brings back the fresh memories all over again and allows us to continue our obsession with it one last time. It is our final farewell until the next season. Hmmmm...A nice rich dark chocolate that has the fresh zesty kick of a Meyer Lemon. How sweet it is.

Dolcezza

Our beautiful new name and logo and how they came into being. Last year for the holidays, Violeta and I travelled to Torino, Italy to be with Violeta's dad, Luis and his wife, Daniela. Daniela is from Torino and they have a beautiful little apartment right there in the city. We spent an amazing 5 days with the family eating good cheese, drinking amazing wine and hitting up all the gelaterias we could find. We have to do our research, you know.
For sometime leading up to the trip we had been talking about changing our name, Isee Icy - fresh ice creams. It just didn't feel right and nowhere did it say 'argentine gelato'. So, I had a mission during our European vacation and that was to sit with Luis and come up with a name that better fits who we are. The day after Christmas, we took a train from Torino to Paris to pass the New Year there, and thus the process began as Luis scribbled away a full page of potential names for the shop. They included 'Dulce Violeta', 'Sapori', 'Dolcissimo', 'Dolcezza' etc... It didn't take long for us to decide on the right one - Dolcezza, which means sweetness in Italian. We knew the name encompassed what we do. We create sweetness. Sweet!
Now, the next phase. Designing a logo. Again, we went to our designer in Buenos Aires. Carlos Porley is his name. After an intense free-wheeling session of logo creation, he sent us 12 very different logos for Dolcezza. We narrowed it down to 3 and then slept on it. The next day, we all agreed on the logo and waa-laa...Dolcezza was born.
We are very happy with our name change and new logo. We think it better represents our gelato and who we are. Dolcezza is italian, as is the origin of argentine gelato. Our shop now says 'argentine gelato' on the outside and finally the simple, elegant design just feels right, which I guess in the end is the most important thing. It's gotta feel right and it does.

Cara Cara Oranges

Compliments of our good friends at Chef's Warehouse, we received a crate of Cara Cara Oranges this weekend. It is a fairly new arrival on the citrus scene and caught somewhere between a Blood Orange and a Navel Orange. It has ruby red pulp and is a bit sweeter than the typical navel orange. So, we spun a small batch up this weekend to see how it would come out and we were very happy with the results. A smooth and creamy sorbetto with subtle sweet, grapefruit and citrus notes. We will scribe that one down in the book & spin up another tasty batch this week.

Rosemary & Honey

This morning we sat down and made a fresh batch of Rosemary & Honey sorbetto. Divinely smooth and sweet with a light overtone of rosemary all the way through. A squeeze of lemon juice brings out the rosemary which rides on top of the soft honey sweetness. The marriage of different flavors is the most satisfying part, as we get to play alchemy everyday by experimenting, sampling and constantly tweaking the ingredients until we get it just right. And when we do get it just right, we dance, sing and celebrate in the kitchen and happily scribe it in our little book of recipes, which grows by the minute.

Honey Rosemary will be a featured flavor on the menu at kyma, which will be opening in Annapolis, Md this summer. Tim Elliot and Jose Picazo, who are currently the chef's at mie n yu
will be responsible for bringing kyma to life. We will be creating many more flavors in the coming weeks and months, so keep posted as there is no end in sight, and we couldn't be happier. Creating beautiful gelato is our passion that makes us sing all the day long. la di di...la di da...