{gelato-ology}

2011-11-02T01:20:00.000-07:00

the first day of being back is always the best. i exist in a kind of travel time, stuck somewhere between deja vu and dream, where everything is familiar and new, at the same time. it lets me see wherever it is that i am living from a totally different perspective, it allows newness to sneak back into the picture. a kind of suspension of disbelief. i think that no matter what it is you do, that you need to get away from it every once in awhile, in order to maintain a healthy and alive perspective on it. so, here is a little remembrance of that little get away, still fresh on the scene.

intelligentsia, venice beach

intelligentsia, silver lake

big sur, california

my girls

boccalone, san francisco

big sur, california


paper or plastik, los angeles

sunset from griffith park observatory, los angeles

2011-10-31T06:14:00.000-07:00

the fall 2011 road trip is coming to an end. we flew into LAX and for 12 nights drove up the dramatic coast of California, saw big sur, stayed in SFO and hung out in LA. it was a whirlwind tour, made that way by taking a 2 year old on the road with ya. it is just too much change and movement for someone that small, at least it was too much for pema. by day 5 she kept saying she wanted to go home and didn't want to go back to the hotel. so, i commented to some folks in San Fran, that we are on a 2 year old schedule and that the brilliant moments, like a sunset in Los Angeles, for example, are always 1 second away from a total catastrophic melt down. i think we are all ready to return back home to DC and be in our casa, our bed, around our home-cooked food, our town.
so, it is 5:30 in the morning here in our LA hotel, violeta is asleep in one bed, paloma asleep on the other, pema is face-down fast asleep on the floor and i am huddled over the computer, in the pitch black, listening to a crazy slovenian philosopher talk about wall street and the end of times, thinking about when i am going to get dressed and drive over to intelligentsia venice beach for my final coffee, trying to sum up my last 12 nights of existence on the california coast. it was sweet, it was brutal, it was crazy, it was nerve racking, it was RITUAL, it was BLUE BOTTLE, it was FOUR BARREL, it was INTELLI, it was borderline, cruise control, dramatic, cliffs, TARTINE, rolling hills, mill valley, tense, flowing, HUMPHRY SLOCOMBE, cheap hotels, good food, MOZZA, missed opportunities, defining, inspiring, exhausting, enthralling, un-plugging, learning.
and now it is time for us to go home and we are ready, it makes me feel old to say that, although i don't feel old, it still sounds it. so lame, such ashame, it all has to come to an end.

2011-10-16T05:50:00.000-07:00

i hung out with some pretty brilliant folks tonight. our friends ben, charlotta and their little girl,teá came down from NYC and were staying at some other friends house, tony, jackie and their little boy rowan. violeta, pema and i went over to their house for a lovely dinner to celebrate the birthday of tony, happy birthday tony! teá, rowan and pema go way back, they were delivered by the same mid-wife, all within 3 weeks of each other, so it's like their first group of friends from the 0-point on the graph, we're talking old school. so, anyways, we ate home-made lasagna, sung happy birthday songs, tore into a chocolate cake, and ate about 9 different flavors of gelato, all with the autumn theme, replete with crookneck pumpkin, apple, pear, apple cider, fig and the like. after that, us boys went out to walk the dogs and shoot the shit. we began chatting about a whole range of subjects, everything from the protests on wall street, steve jobs psychedelic use, alternative energy, shale oil, the amount of gold in sea water and how 'denial is not just a river in egypt'. the conversation kept circling back to the current state of affairs and the shared feeling that their is currently a lot of flux in the system, flux meaning volatility, upheaval, chaos and change. we asked each other the question, can anyone imagine things continuing as they are for the next 100, 200 years, with the amount of energy extraction, food supply, water supply, population growth, environmental pollution, climate change, growing political division, foreign policy, etc. and the answer that kept coming back was a resounding NO, none of us could really imagine how it would be possible or sustainable for business to continue as usual for that much longer. so, the next logical question was how does it change or shift to where it needs to go, and how do you define where that is. i mean it's such a loaded, complex, huge question, it's damn near impossible to get your mind around.

at one moment in the conversation, tony said "just imagine, for example if America said that we weren't going to consume anymore fossil fuel and we were going to develop and work with mostly alternative energy", an extreme far stretch of the imagination, but just as an example, he pointed out that it would immediately drop the price of petroleum and how other emerging countries, such as china, or india would snap it up in an instant at the lower price and benefit from it, and how this is obviously a major deterrent from going in that direction. then we veered into goldman sachs and how it seems they always come out on the right side of the deal, no matter how bad the deal goes, and so on. i certainly do not claim to understand one-tenth of what we discussed but near the end of our walk and talk, i felt something innocent break inside of me. i had this sinking feeling of how far away we really are from making the decisions and changes we need to make as a people on this finite planet in order for us to go in a more healthy direction, a more sustainable one and how massively complex this question is. the complexity is made more difficult by the fact that we can't even get the people who need to sit down and make these decisions, like our world leaders, CEO's, policy makers, etc. to sit down and talk about the issues we face because everyone and everything is so driven by the market, and if it means we are going to sacrifice our profits now for the future you can pretty much forget about it. what i feel that shifted in me was the following: instead of waiting around for some institution, group of people, or even just one other person who is not yourself to "fix it" or to bring about change is very innocent. it is a naive position to believe that someone or something outside of ourselves will do it, it is a very western view. and that brings me to dolcezza and the entity we have created. this is the forum we have to say and express and create what we believe and it is a very empowering, creative, beautiful voice, one that will touch more people than just the individual. so, that is where we will try and focus and just enjoy the fact that without ever saying a word, but by making something like crookneck pumpkin gelato, from a crazy biblical farmer named zachariah, in our ovens in georgetown, rubbing it down with his young ginger, fresh ground cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, all with our own hands, care and love, that this will resound and be heard and be tasted. and that made me feel good again.

2011-10-09T15:51:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you can find inspiration lurking in the back alleyway of your house, just at the right moment, when the light is there, the charge is there and the scintilla of awareness is there. What is this thing we call inspiration, a word that mutes the actual felt emotion. Inspiration, inhaling spirits as my friend, Damien commented to me way back when in the day. It seems that sometimes it is possible to coax it into being, and bring it forth, other moments it feels as if it is far-far way, pouting back behind some clouds or gray sky. All I know is that inspiration is like fuel to my soul. When it is not naturally around, I go hunting for it around every corner. What about you? are you mad, looking for the seam in every moment, thinking that it just may split open, even for a brief second, or are you content with how it all works and how you work in it? Sometimes it can feel as if you are the main character in your own novel, which you happen to be writing, doesn't it? hasn't it? isn't it? right now, yesterday & tomorrow.

2011-09-28T19:53:00.000-07:00

these days have been cloudy, misty, northwestern and just downright dank, it aint that bad when talking about certain things, but when it comes to our local climate, i just haven't been digg'n it as-of-late. i was relieved and somewhat elated to see the clouds part and the sun peek out today, even if it was for a short while, before another storm passed through.
today we spun our first batch of CROOKNECK PUMPKIN gelato. these crooknecks come to us vis-a-vis zaccharia lester with TREE & LEAF, who has become some kind of biblical vegetable grower to me. he knows his shit and he lives, breathes and sleeps it, i mean this man is mad on a hell-bent mission to bring the finest produce to all mankind, or at least that is what i choose to believe in my self-generated, fully-enjoyed fantasy world. seriously, the man grows the finest crookneck or any kind of pumpkin i have seen and/or eaten. we cut 'em into 1-inch rounds, rub 'em down with a fresh ground spice mix of muscovado sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, allspice and zach's freshly grated young ginger, we then roast them at 400F until they are fork tender, then we make a puree in the robot coupe and finally add it to our PERRYDELL milk and cream. the result is something so far beyond pumpkin pie that it can barely be compared as such. it is all about the pumpkin and barely about the spices, they are simply there to accompany, and not to star, the way pumpkin pie should be, but sadly, rarely is. in the next couple of weeks, we will also start making our GINGER CARDAMOM PISTACCHIO gelato, with the above mentioned biblical character's young ginger, which is just as much about the beauty as it is the flavor. so, things around here are beginning to get cranked up and we are as well. we invite ya all down to any one of our shops or farmers' market stands, so we can share some of this fine local bounty with ya and maybe a good conversation, or two. ya'll be good, now.

2011-09-24T21:06:00.000-07:00

you see, we really like the change of seasons, those moments of transition, from one roster of fruits to another. we are in the last week for peaches, nectarines, watermelons, cucumbers and plums and upon the first week for apples, pears, ciders, crookneck pumpkin, ginger and wildflower honey. the fall. autumn. personally my favorite season, lejos, it's super charged with rich memories, mostly associated with smells, burning leaves, roasted pumpkins, mulled cider and what not. tomorrow, zach from tree&leaf will deliver the first crates of his crooknecks and young ginger and we say 'oh yeah'. we love having our sunday coffee in the dupont shop and chatting with these masters, these vegetable growers, fruit tamers, butchers, salami makers, these folks who make our life so much richer, so much more delicious. these are the facets of the business that i never anticipated when we opened our doors to make gelato 7+ years ago, but they are now the daily fabric of our personal and professional life. by the way, did you see how neutrinos possibly traveled faster than the speed of light, talk about moments of transition, jeez, it's all becoming so sci-fi, so-much-so, so-much-so, so good-bye.

2011-09-03T19:35:00.000-07:00

Wow! Two-Thousand-And-Eleven. It has been such a good year, one of deep introspection, tightening things down, fine-tuning & getting our hands around this entity called Dolcezza. She has become a real force, one with her own moods & momentum, and she now has 7+ plus years under her belt. She matures, she evolves, she gets finer and richer, and so do we as we ride along with her.
We are currently heading into our Summer-Fall transition, where the bright colorful Summer fruits retreat and make way for the Fall earthen fruits, bringing the likes of young ginger, crookneck pumpkins, apples, pears, ciders and honey. We are so fond of these moments, these moments of transition, where we cycle from one set of ingredients into another. It is such a beautiful experience, learning about what grows in the local area, when it grows in the local area, and who it is that grows & makes this food. Without this knowledge and this food and these relationships, we would be that much poorer, in all senses of the word. So, we welcome the new season and say goodbye to the old one, again, we can't wait to see what she brings.

2011-05-02T19:39:00.000-07:00

well, i suppose it's official, spring is here. time to get out and start digging and seeing how many worms are making their way through the soil. i was pleasantly surprised with my worm count this year, i don't know about you? i asked zach with Tree & Leaf if he could hook me up with some of his killer soil and he gave me two 5lb tubs of the good shit. i have never seen anything like in my life, black, green, brown, full of magnesium, worm casting, phosphorus and the like. if you ever feel like gettin' geeky about dirt, zach is your man, your mad man. i have learned quite a bit from him. he goes hardcore on everything he does, green houses, composting, heirloom varieties and just about everything we've ever eaten from him & georgia have blown us away. this year, he will be providing us with all of our opal basil, genovese basil, peppermint, ginger, butternut squash and crookneck pumpkins. last year we scooped and dried all the seeds from the crooknecks, so we could give the seed back to zach, so, it's a nice feeling, knowing we have something to do with this years crop. i guess there is a good feeling about getting involved in whatever you do, couldn't see doing it any other way, kinda like, if you're going to do it, do it, sorta thing. so, with all this spring fling in the air, for us it means the building anxieties until the strawberries start showing up. i called Westmoreland Berry Farm last week and they are saying after Mother's Day we should be able to get a hold of some strawberries. i know they are already available in small quantities because i have seen them on menus around the city, but when i say strawberries, we are talking 15 - 20 cases per week. it's crazy just writing that out, to think that we will eat, admire, rave about and create some pretty amazing gelato with over 120 cases of strawberries this year. we always start the season in the south, Oak Grove, VA to be exact, with strawberries from Westmoreland. This usually goes on for about 4 weeks and then we finish the season with strawberries from Toigo Orchards, out of Shippensburg, PA, which go for about another 2 - 3 weeks, weather depending. We will be doing all kinds of creations this year, like combining them with tarragon, lime, lemon, Pernod, tequila, cream, cooking down a sauce and folding it into our dulce de leche gelato and whatever else our fancy muses. this year our strawberry slingin' season is dedicated to a dear lady who went away, don't really know where, but she aint here no more, Martha from Westmoreland Berry Farm. she has been the kind and competent voice on the phone every week for last 5 years, during berry season. we will miss her dearly and i know they will to. it's such a damn shame we all have to go away some day, a part of me would change it if i could, but then i know that life and living would be much less sweet, so i would just fuck it up. one of those bittersweet lessons of life & death, i guess, THE bittersweet lesson of life & death. so, Martha, i hope we do this year justice with them strawberries, every batch and order will done thinking about you.

2011-04-14T19:24:00.000-07:00

Over the winter, Violeta, Pema & I took a long overdue and much needed break from the shop. We went to Buenos Aires for 1 month and to Punta Bellena, Uruguay for 1 month. Luckily it was over the winter, so the shop was much quieter and we had 3 rock stars taking care of the show, Paloma, Bethany & Dimas. They did an amazing job of handling all operations while we were away. Needless to say our trip was amazing, alucinante, transforming, quieting, resting, flowing, tripping, sleeping, swimming, eating & drinking. We were able to rest so much and get back to just going with the flow. It had been awhile & was so refreshing. There were lots of fires, heat, friends, meat, coals, beers, family, conversations, revelations, good food, bad coffee, bad food, worse coffee, beautiful beaches, jelly fish, long drives, hill sides, buses, plains, taxis, pizza, carne, helado, grills, asados, barbecues, parillas, chivitos, el cuartito, cats, babies, dogs, bites, fights, make-ups, joys, good vibes, latino air, long hair, swag, seeds, beads & friends like hermanos, bands, music, jumping, jack, pema, amep, long winded conversations, spanish speaking, english forgetting, healing, enlightening, yoga-ing, breathing, forgetting & remembering.

i guess that about sums it up, pretty much. now we is freaking ready for the sun to stay out and for the warmth to bring out the masses. we are ready to dazzle, dizzle & get down. be seeing you all at the shops & farmers' markets. tis the season.

2010-12-17T21:43:00.000-08:00

So, what have we been up to, as of late? Well, in the last 16 months we had a baby girl, opened up a store in Dupont, rolled out our WHOLE FOODS pint program, moved to a house in Columbia Heights and sold our apartment in Adams Morgan. All the while passing through our summer season, which is total insanity already. Needless to say, it has been an intense, a beautiful, a transforming, an exhausting-exhilarating, mind blowing, fucking awesome trip, to say the least! We have been up and we have been down, we have been like corks bobbing on the surface of the ocean, sometimes languidly floating under the full moon, other times it seems as if we barely pop up to the surface for a gasp of air. That's just how life seems to bring her experience, at full fucking speed, pedal to the metal, in the art gear. Creating, spewing, scribing, cooking, balancing, all the while. Now, let the holidays come upon us, and we retire to our purple tents, ready to rest and send the roots deeper in the ground. We travel to Atlanta on Sunday for 10 glorious days, return to the roots, the familiar, the family and share, laugh, rest, sleep, nap, eat and love. It will be our first trip since last xmas, when we did the same.
Violeta & i met on the road, where we traveled together for 4 months, with no schedule and no destination, so it will quench a deep, overdue thirst. We return at the end of December and then 10 days later we take off for Buenos Aires for 1 month and then to the beaches of Uruguay for 1 month. I can't speak of the excitement I feel for this trip. Our LITTLE GIRL'S first airplane ride, her first visit to her MOTHER'S home country of Argentina, her first encounter with Violeta's older SISTER, her meeting with her GREAT GRANDMOTHER who is turning 100 years old in February and our long reunion with her GRANDMOTHER & GRANDFATHER, who were all present at the birth, in our last apartment in Adams Morgan. I guess that's part of the reason why it has been so long since I last pounded on this keyboard. You see, I run high and I run low & after the intensity of the summer season, if I don't pull out, change the channel or take a trip, I lose space and thus inspiration. We have been pretty full for quite some time, and I'm already beginning to feel the space, freedom and inspiration, which the future casts like a shadow into the past . So, I hope all of you out there have a wonderful holiday season doing the things that you truly love, having conversations that utterly move you and just basically doing your thing. HAPPY HOLIDAYS from all of us at Dolcezza!

2010-11-05T20:08:00.000-07:00

Jesus-Christ-Superstar, has it really been that long! 6 fucking months since my last post, 14 fucking months since my last nap!! yup, i guess so. i guess it's just the way it is, i mean, being a new father, opening a 3rd store, running 6 farmers' markets, producing & delivering to 70+ restaurants, moving to a new house, paying 2 mortgages until the old house is sold, all this on about 4 to 5 hours of sleep a night, do u really wanna talk about holding on to the last shred of sanity?! i do! so, i figure that's about as good as a reason as any, as to why i haven't updated this blog. too much going on & too little space to report on it. now, with winter fast approaching and the pace slowing down a bit, hopefully, i will be able to sit down and rant about the comings & goings of life at dolcezza. it's truly a grand supernatural surreal exhilarating soul-satisfying shit-kicking experience, at least as good as any as i know. so, in the meantime i leave you with funny bunny ears & hope ya'll are swell.

2010-05-11T12:24:00.000-07:00

dolcezza dupont

When Bev, Eric, Violeta and I were planning this whole WHO THE F!@K CARES party, we were approaching it from the angle of "let's just jump in and see what happens." Well, jump we did and get down was done, over 1,700 folks showed up and devoured 50 gallons of gelati and picked apart a 330lb red wattle pig, which had been smoked with hickory, walnut and locust at 200F for 22 hours right there in Dupont circle. We sat there all night tending the fire, shooting the shit, drinking beer & smoking the pig, and whatever else found its way to our lips. It was a grand crazy time that reminded me so much of growing up in Georgia and camping out in the mountains and staying up all night by the fire underneath a beautiful sky. The winds surely were whipping through the alley way, but as long as we stayed close to the fire we were all right. So, when Sunday rolled around, apart from the fact that we were all destroyed from the lack of sleep the night before, we had no problem of getting down to the music, the food and the overall vibes of all you folks who came out. We ran out of that beast of a pig by about 4:30pm and had to pull from our personal stash that we were storing in the smoker for the family afterwards. We were able to feed the rest of the crowd up until 6pm with that. We were blown away by the turnout and by the good vibes of all the people who came out. It was truly a beautiful time, and it certainly won't be the last time. So thanks to all you folks who showed up, we were more than happy to share our place and food with you and we will definitely be doing this again.

planning session with the boys of how the hell to take 330lbs of goodness from Bev's truck to Eric's smoker

dolcezza dupont strapped to the hilt

pig loaded on the BMF (Bad Mother Fucker) - that's the real name, i swear

happy vibes

2010-04-11T20:44:00.000-07:00

So, we speedily approach the opening of our 3rd store in Dupont Circle. Sometimes it has felt as if we were in a speeding car, swerving and careening around corners, barely hanging on and maintaining control, and other times, it has felt like a dream, months of planning and hard work now nearing fruition. One thing that is certain inside of all this un-certainty is that the Dupont store is a looker, i mean she's just drop-dead gorgeous. We have done absolutely everything on this project, save for the actual licensed mechanical, electrical and plumbing work, of course, and this fact makes the space feel that much more special. It is us from the bottom up, down to the last screw we tighten. We are hoping to open our doors this Saturday, but think in reality, it will be more like next Monday or Tuesday, all depending on how the inspections go.
There is one date which is set in stone, and that is the grand opening for dupont. If you don't come, it's not our fault, and, yes, we will be extremely offended. To get all you non-believers out, all I need to say is free gelato, blue grass music and a 220lb, 20 hour smoking of a whole hog from our dear crazy friend, Bev Eggleston with Eco-Friendly Foods, and when I say crazy, I mean that in the highest honor. I mean the man is a true-blue mad pork shaman, sent and bent on a mission to spread the pork gospel. & we kinda feel the same way about our gelato and coffee, i mean if you're not bent on a mission, then you just haven't gone deep enough to find your passions and obsessions.
So, get all fancied up and come on out on Sunday, April 25th, from noon - 6pm to celebrate the grand opening of our Dupont Circle store. Dupont, we have arrived, and you shall never look the same!!

2010-04-01T10:26:00.000-07:00

We are back in Penn Quarter Farmers' Market today! The sun is brilliant and the mood high. We are packed & stacked with 5 flavors of gelati & 5 flavors of sorbetti. The goods are the following:

gelati
valrhona chcolate amargo
pistacchio siciliano
lemon ricotta cardamom
dulce de leche
thai coconut milk

sorbetti
gold rush apple
heirloom apple cider
blood orange
lime
grapefruit campari

hope to see out there.

2010-03-30T20:37:00.001-07:00

So fast time goes now, not knowing whence & how. Life radically changes with a lil one on the scene. Going anywhere now takes that much longer. I was always a little late, now it all comes bundled in a perfect excuse.
Spring is finally in the air. This weekend will be reaching the 80's and we will be starting up Penn Quarter Farmers' Market on Thursday and will be back for our 4th week at Dupont Farmers' Market on Sunday. The air is ripe with anticipation after our long deep winter here in DC. I will be calling my Virginia farmer to check on the strawberries in the next couple of weeks. I will also be checking on the rhubarb this week at the market, ready to meld it with Mascarpone cheese and transform it into something extra special.
We are excited to get this year going at Dolcezza. There are big things a happening, so stay tuned for all spring / summer fruits which will start popping there tiny heads out of the earth here shortly. We can't wait & neither can you.

2010-02-07T21:56:00.001-08:00

Can you fucking believe it! Twenty or Thirty something odd inches of snow. Even though it kills, crushes & extinguishes our sales of gelati, not to mention we didn't even open our shop this past weekend, I still love snow as much as I did back yonder in the wonder-filled days of being a child, especially now that I have a child of my own and I get to watch her as the snow falls and blankets everything with her whiteness. It slows and silences everything, transforming our streets and neighborhood and city into a winter wonderland. We get to take a break from our worker bee mentality and just go with the flow from apartment to cafe to apartment, cook some good food, watch movies and take pema out on walks. Aint nothing like it if you ask me. So, I hope all you folks got to enjoy the snow & the silence as much as we did. I still don't know how the hell we are going to dig out our little Volkswagen bug, then again, I don't really care. Tomorrow we return to the shop, and get to start the day with a beautifully crafted and balanced shot of espresso black cat, roasted by intelligentsia, I can't wait, as we go from playing in the snow to sipping espresso to juicing sweet blood oranges and finally spinning her up in one of the finest sorbetti of the year, still can't get over this citrus fruit, she blows my mind with each and every batch.

2010-01-01T21:00:00.001-08:00

Well, first of all folks, Happy New Year from all of us dolcezzitos. We hope you ushered it in with grace & loads of fun. We headed down to Atlanta to spend our Christmas with parents, brothers, sisters and friends. We passed through the Smoky Mountains for about 3 nights and it was wondrous and mysterious, just like the mountains should be. We had about 5 inches of snow the night before we were to peel out of there, and we almost didn't make it, but our little Volkswagen bug thought he could & so, he did. This was Pema's first Christmas, and she is my parent's first grandchild, so you can imagine the times, they were glowing and special, just like Christmas should be. Christmas always brings back vivid and magical memories, those filled with anticipation for the great big fat jolly man to load up his sleigh and come sweeping through the cold clear sky and deliver loads of gifts. We would always leave out cookies and milk and they would always be cleaned up by the morning hours. My brother, sister and me all used to sleep in the same bed on Christmas Eve, it was a tortured sleepless night anxiously awaiting for the sun to rise, so we could go wake up our parents, who for sure, had just gone to bed.
Pema went from new person to new person and loved every bit of spoiled attention she got. On Christmas Eve, she woke up talking at 11:30pm, so I took her out to the den where my mom and sister were wrapping presents and putting them under the tree. Pema went crazy and played for the next hour with the wrapping paper, bows and tape. It was as if she wanted to be up for the moment of Christmas night striking midnight. We all screamed Merry Christmas right at 12 midnight and she slung her arms up and screeched as is she knew exactly what we were saying and exactly what she was doing. All 10 days were flooded with alive memories from my childhood. It was definitely one of the most special Christmas holidays I have passed, if not the most special.
Now we are back and ready to get into the kitchen and behind the espresso machine, to do what we love to do and welcome in a new year, a new decade. Hope your holidays were filled with magical moments and we will be seeing you around.

2009-11-23T04:53:00.000-08:00

Well, it is that fowl time of year again, replete with over-eating, over-drinking, over-staying your welcome and over-indulging in gelato. You may be able to roast the meanest turkey this side of the Mississippi, but if you don't come packing with several pints of our seasonal gelato to those parties or to them parents, then they might as well not let you in! & that's just where we come in. We will help you be the fave of the household by spinning lots of seasonal delicacies for the Thanksgiving Holiday, and there is no better way to finish off your meal than with our gelato. So, our Thanksgiving menu at the store this week is: CROOKNECK PUMPKIN (Westmoreland crooknecks roasted low & slow with ginger, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, allspice and muscovado brown sugar), HEIRLOOM APPLE CIDER (Westmoreland apple cider warmed with cinnamon, clove, allspice & orange rind), YELLOW BARTLETT PEAR BOURBON (Toigo Orchards yellow bartlett pears spiked with Wild Turkey Bourbon), QUINCE (Toigo Orchards quince poached with lemon, cinnamon and ginger), SUMATRA CINNAMON (hot & spicy cinnamon sticks freshly ground and infused in Perrydell Farm Dairy milk and cream), LEMON RICOTTA CARDAMOM (Keswick Creamery ricotta cheese with lemon and a hint of cardamom), MEYER LEMON VODKA (sweet meyer lemons spiked with Grey Goose Vodka) POMEGRANATE, CLEMENTINE & as always, the venerable VALRHONA CHOCOLATE AMARGO and PISTACCHIO di BRONTE.

So, finish your meal in style, because the last thing you put in your mouth will probably be the one you remember ;)

2009-10-04T19:30:00.000-07:00

It has been one month since the birth of our daughter girl and it has passed by like a sleepless blur. A lot of contemplation & reflection has filled this past month, all allowed by the amount of time spent at home insulated from the "outside" world, living inside our self-generated bubble, doing little else but taking care of our lil' girl. Having Pema at home was the most beautiful and the most intense experience of our lives, a true right of passage. People had always told me how life totally changes once you have a child, and I knew they were right, but really had no idea what to expect. Since Pema was born I now view this world and my place in it from a different position. It is as if the DNA program, responsible for the reproduction of the species has been activated and now I have this little helpless human living with me who needs to be loved unconditionally, cared for, fed, protected, nurtured, etc... It has changed absolutely everything!
Today, at the Dupont market, I was speaking with a chap about what we learned through this whole birth experience. We learned that the Birth Industry has done to birthing what the Food Industry has done to eating. The interest lies in profits and not in the best interest of the mom, baby and dad. It is really sad how this industry has changed the perception of the people in the last 100 years. In 1900, over 95% of the births were at home, by 1955, less than 2% of births were at home. Don't get me wrong, hospitals and modern medicine have their place and thank god for them, but I think they end up doing more harm than good in the whole birth process. I know this is a subject that people tend to completely freak out about, so I have no judgement, I just offer my own experience, which is very little. I just think that if a pregnancy and birth have no major complications, then it is probably better to let it unfold as it needs to, on its own, with very little or no intervention. This obviously has much more to do with the woman than the man, and I have no problem admitting that Violeta is way braver & stronger than me.
So, anyways, life is grand, altered, full, sleepless, joyful, simply beyond words, ineffable, i guess it would be. What does all this have to do with gelato, well, i guess just to say that we like to do EVERYTHING the natural way, whether it is spinning gelato or spinning babies, it just seems to come out better, and that's just the way we are.

2009-09-18T01:53:00.001-07:00

Of all the flavors we have created in our 5 + years at Dolcezza, nothing comes close to the latest creation. Our little girl, Pema Isabella Duncan, was born Saturday, September 5th, at home with the help of 2 amazing midwives, my mother-in-law, my sister-in-law, myself and of course, the star of the show, my brave beautiful wife, Violeta. To try and say something about this experience robs it of any meaning; primitive, mammalian, animal, evolution, fucking mind blowing, gut wrenching, hallelujah, goddamn, to say the least. Life will never be the same, and it shouldn't. So, here is to our new arrival. She is beautiful, like a rainbow...

2009-08-02T18:12:00.000-07:00

What a rainy freak'n day at the market. We were actually glad when the rain started, because it finally broke through the dense humidity that was drenching the market scene. The few & true still showed up for their pint-size fix, but all-in-all it was a quiet market. These slow rainy days are great because it allows the vendors to hang out and shoot the shit with the breeze. I never grow tired of listening to ole Bev Eggleston ramble, rant & rave. I told him today that I think he is possessed by swine & is on a cult mission preaching the gospel of pork. I, for sure, am a believer. Then Mark Toigo walks up and all the talk turns to a food revolution & how we could play an instigative & active role in the whole shabang. If we could realize just half of the crazy ideas we talk about, we could have a very big impact on the local food scene. We will see where all this ramble leads to, if anywhere.
This weekend was also Violeta's baby shower. It was so incredibly nice & makes us realize how beautiful our group of friends and family are. It all started out innocent enough, but, eventually it just turned into one delirious debacle, just like most social events do, or at least you certainly hope for them to.

2009-07-28T20:10:00.000-07:00

Jeez-Louise, July is almost over. Just like that. The fact that I haven't even looked at this blog since mid June will attest to one thing, this summer has been totally insane! Running 2 shops, 5 farmers' markets & delivering 6 days a week to about 60 local restaurants and hotels. It has been a bright and intense summer, thus far. So, since there is still one more month left to go, I will just do a stream-of-consciousness-data-dump to sum up the events of this past month.

strawberries, rhubarbs, tarragon, mint, basil, hotel pools, gastrofreaks in jamaica, farmers' markets, sonic youth, depeche mode, honduras, red raspberries, black raspberries, purple raspberries, birthing class, baby shopping, mentally-physically-spiritually preparing for baby girl, pema, rainbows, rainy spring, sleeping, not sleeping, stressing, chilling, thick espresso, perfect texture, best chocolate gelato in DC, homemade chicken stock, suckling pig, komi, apricots, white peaches, yellow peaches & loads of southern comfort, tia maria & bourbon. oh yeah, the toigo cook-out, which we missed, fuck! see you in august.

2009-06-16T19:09:00.000-07:00

A nice article today in the Washington Post Food Section about Pitango gelato, with a couple of paragraphs about us over here at Dolcezza. It is just another confirmation to what is happening, and what has been happening to local artisanal gelato and ice cream in this country, the movement is truly catching on, just as with chocolate, coffee, cheese, charcuterie, pickles, etc. I just like the fact that I was quoted as saying "that most of the stuff that we get is just crap." It is time to hold your food producers responsible and demand real food! So, read, enjoy and come see us in our 2 shops or at our farmers' markets and let us know what you think. See ya around.

WaPo article

2009-06-01T05:38:00.001-07:00

Every time we go to New York it seems I write a post about that city. No matter how many times we go and no matter how frequently we return, New York always surprises and excites me, I see New York as an independently functioning, alive, evolving organism, moving & groping with it's own momentum, restaurants opening, restaurants closing, barrios happening, people never sleeping, trash collecting, water flowing, traffic jamming, all pulsing along to her own song, a very strong and unique song, that is for sure.
This time we were in NYC for a wedding of dear friends and it was something out of a movie. The wedding was held at Ten Ton Studios in the old Brooklyn Naval Yards. Rob, who owns and runs the studio, is a National Geographic photographer and a good friend of the groom. The place was unbelievable. inspirational. mind-blowing. I imagined how it might be for an artist, living amongst other artists, to live in this minimalistic and industrial world, creating art, experimenting, pushing yourself to the creative limits, and then going farther. I mean you couldn't help but extrude art and expression. Surround yourself with creative and inspiring types & settings and it's inevitable to push you deep into many creative crevices, nooks and crannys. These are the fantasy worlds that I try and make come true. It's what it's all about isn't it, making your dreams into reality, make believe.
So, the ceremony was absolutely beautiful, the bride and groom very happy, the crowd plenty a drunk and Violeta and I danced more than we had in a long, long time. Thank you New York. Thank you Natalia. Thank you Aram. Thank you friends.

2009-05-18T18:08:00.000-07:00

This past Monday we drove up to Shippensburg, Pa to visit our friends at Toigo Orchards. The farm is nestled in the Cumberland Valley with rows and rows of apple, pear, apricot, peach and plum trees stretching across the land and rolling up to the nearby hills. Mark Toigo and Vaclav are the ones who run and oversee the operations, and we use pretty much everything they grow in the production of our gelato. Beginning with their strawberries, then on with the cucumbers, sour cherries, apricots, plums, yellow peaches, white peaches, red watermelons, yellow watermelons, athena cantaloupes, yellow corn, heirloom tomatoes, chestnuts, all types of pears and apples, ciders and sweetening it all up with their raw honey. That's pretty much everything that comes off that farm and right smack into our gelato. It's so nice to know the folks and the land where our ingredients come from. We would not do it any other way.

2009-05-13T07:52:00.000-07:00

Folks, the fact that the frequency of blogging has declined is a direct result of the madness that ensues for every gelato crafter around this time of year. So, with few words i lay down our farmers' market menu, where you can find us now in 5 farmers' markets. We are as busy as bumblebees in spring and loving every second of it. Tis the season.

SORBETTO
1. Sicilian Blood Orange
2. Avocado Honey Orange
3. Strawberry PERNOD
4. Mojito
5. Champagne Mango
6. Pineapple Honey Lime
GELATO
7. Valrhona Chocolate Amargo
8. Pistacchio di Bronte
9. Thai Coconut Milk
10. Meyer Lemon Mascarpone
11. Lemon Ricotta Cardamom
12. Mexican Coffee

2009-04-27T06:06:00.000-07:00

After clicking on the link below, play the little video to see us in action at Dupont Farmers' Market and to admire the skills of the famed accordionist, Jason Orfannon.

Dolcezza at Dupont Farmers' Market

2009-04-07T03:37:00.001-07:00

So, I get up at 5:00am because i can't stop repeating this week's farmers' market menu like a mantra so i wouldn't forget. After lying there for 15 minutes, i decide to get up and write it down, so it would be guaranteed that i wouldn't forget. So, i come to this public stage, not the private confines of MS Word to scribe my menu for this coming weeks farmers' markets, both Penn Quarter and Dupont Circle. Here it goes...ahem...

1. Sicilian Blood Orange
2. Meyer Lemon Vodka
3. Pineapple Honey Lime
4. Mango Habanero Lime
5. Avocado Honey Orange
6. Caipirinha
7. Valrhona Chocolate Amargo
8. Pistacchio di Bronte
9. Nocciola del Piemonte
10. Espresso Toscano
11. Ginger Cardamom Pistacchio
12. Thai Coconut Milk

So, there, it is written, transduced into word. & now, as i sit here knowing that i will carry a certain exhaustion this day, at least, i also carry the satisfaction of getting this out, no more menu ricocheting in my mind. On Wednesday, this menu will be executed with the utmost care and the fullest obsession. Hope to see you at one of the two markets. Good day.

2009-04-03T21:33:00.000-07:00

We got a little shoutout in bon appétit magazine this month for our shop in Bethesda. Check it out.

2009-03-22T15:25:00.000-07:00

Well, according to the primitive folk, whom lived in much closer contact with this planet than us moderns do, it is officially spring, and it definitely felt & smelt of it today. Dupont Farmers' market was crawling with hungry people, and our tent was a Crawling-King-Snake of 'em. We pulled out some new ones, like SEVILLE ORANGE CORIANDER SEED & WHISKY. A smooth tart bitter brew, with a light scent of lemon riding through it compliments of the freshly ground coriander infused throughout. If you forgot how fresh the breeze can run and how warm the sun can feel, get your ass out of bed early one Sunday morning and head to the Dupont Circle farmers' market, the place is rife with folks, full of good tastes and Whole Foods bags. Today, for the first time at the market, we sold out of every single flavor we bought, all 200 half-pints of em, our tent buzzed like ants to sugar and it was a trip. Between my mother-in-law, Isabel selling in her heavy accented injun english and Violeta bagging up one order after another, it was a grand time, 4 hours going by like 4 minutes streaking nude down the street. Lots more to come. We are just getting started. yo!

2009-03-10T16:43:00.001-07:00

Well, we have arrived back to our stateside home of Washington DC. Ever since returning on Sunday morning, I have been drifting through those deju-vu states of feeling like I am still down in Buenos Aires but with the realization that I am actually right here in my DC apartment, kinda strange and detaching, like watching a movie where you are the main character, and somehow feeling as if you are also writing the plot, you get me?? We have so many little projects to fire up here at the shop, it is quite exhilarating actually. To run down several: we will be starting by creating a seasonal, changing-all-the-time dessert menu, which will consists of several sundaes or coppettas. We will use gelato as the base and combine it with homesade sauces, ganaches, whipped cream, pralines, granitas, semmifreddos, cookies, brownies, spices, salts and such. It will be an a adventure of flavor and texture combinations. For example, i am thinking of having a CHOCOLATE AMARGO COPPETTA, which will consist of a scoop of our valrhona chocolate amargo gelato, a scoop of blood orange sorbetto, home made cream chantilly and home made chocolate ganache. The fruit component, blood orange in this case, will change with the seasons, so in May and June, we may combine the chocolate gelato with a strawberry sorbetto, while they are in season locally. Another idea is a simple ESPRESSO GRANITA, an elegant combination of espresso granita and home made cream chantilly. It will be an embarkment on a whole slew of new flavor creations and we are psyched.
Sometime around May, we will also be launch our full cafe, which means we will begin to open at 7:30 in the morning and offering several coffee varietals by setting up a pour over bar and using the beautiful changing coffees of our roaster Counter Culture Coffee. For pastries, we will be using the amazing-delicate-delicious-insane pastries of Wes over Quail Creek Ovens, which we will pick up every week when we set up our tent next to him at Penn Quarter Farmers' Market, which starts early April. Speaking of farmers' markets we will be starting in Dupont Circle Farmers' Market this coming Sunday or the next, depends on what Bernie says. Come April and May we will be running 5 farmers markets: Dupont Circle, Penn Qtr, 14th & U, H St NE and Falls Church. Things are about to go hell-fire-crazy around here we is ready to burn!

Uruguay

2009-03-05T07:26:00.000-08:00

...from the many pages that have been read on this trip along the coast of Uruguay...

"We modern human beings are looking at life, trying to make some sense of it; observing a 'reality' that often seems to be unfolding in a foreign tongue - only we've all been issued the wrong librettos. For a text, we're given the Bible. Or the Talmud or the Koran. We're given Time magazine and Reader's Digest, daily papers and the six o'clock news, we're given psychological counseling, cults, workshops, advertisements, sales pitches, and authoritative pronouncements by pundits, sold-out scientists, political activists, and heads of state. Unfortunately, none of these translations bears more than a faint resemblance to what is transpiring in the true theater of existence, and most of them are dangerously misleading. We're attempting to comprehend the spiraling intricacies of a magnificently complex tragicomedy with librettos that describe barroom melodramas or kindergarten skits. And when's the last time you heard anybody bitch about it to the management?"

Maddening

2009-02-27T02:17:00.000-08:00

Well, here it is around 6am & i can´t find a wink of sleep. Part insomniac, part beautiful mind, i don´t really know, all i know is that the schedule i have grown to know over the last 3 weeks here in Buenos Aires is strangely altered. We tried to go to bed early last night because we didn´t have our siesta and were pretty exhausted, so we went to sleep at around 2am & here i am 4 hours later with my mind spinning like a top. The rhythms, the conversations, the characters, the nights, the days, all of it feels like it´s out of a Fellini movie. Typically, we wake up at noon & go have our coffee and some kind of bread product, toast or medialuna, then we meet up for lunch, at around 2pm with either family or friends. We then go out for several hours and do something, yesterday was the antique flea market looking for old vintage plates and spoons for the shop, the day before we went to visit the 98 year old grandmother, who by the way is super lucid and can rap with you on the current political situation in just about any country, we then eventually make our way back to our apartment and take a 2 hour siesta, trying to lay down no later than 6pm. At around 8pm, we start to stir again and head out to the house of some friends, where there is always some form of fire, wood and burning meat involved and we stay up on the rooftops eating, talking lots of delirium, drinking, smoking and bending over laughing from the previously mentioned delirium. All this usually winds down at around 3 or 4am and we head back home to get some sleep. i have no concept of day & night down here, it all gets mixed together, stuffed somewhere between napping, eating and hanging out. It is quite maddening and i can´t get enough of it. Dear lord, how in the hell are we going to adjust to our schedule in WDC in a little over a week?
On Monday, we take off to Uruguay, where we will rent a car and travel the coast for some days. Maybe we will find some peace and normality in the ocean and her beaches, who knows? All i do know is that on this trip, i have connected to the strange soul of this sleepless, groping city of Buenos Aires. It gets into your skin and you don´t ever want to wash it off. I don´t really know where this connection to Latin America comes from, i have had it since i lived in Brasil, maybe i have latin roots somewhere, i don´t really know, all i do know is that a part of me doesn´t want to go, go, going, going, gone...

Chungo

2009-02-26T08:34:00.000-08:00

Well, i have a bit of an update on the gelato situation down here, and who's got the best & what not. In a couple of posts ago, i said that Persicco was our favorite out of the big 3. Now after 3 visits, i have to say that Chungo tops that of the aforementioned Persicco. Their texture, more than anything else, is what sets them apart, such a minor detail, but such a huge result. We have learned this in our 5+ years of making gelato. The smooth creamy texture has all to do with the balancing of the recipes, the balance of the FATS, SUGARS, SOLIDS, etc... It took us a long while to balance all of our recipes, all 350+ of them, because each flavor has it own fat content, sugar content and so on. The other factor that makes this balancing more difficult is working with fresh fruit. Fruits change throughout their lifecycle. When the strawberries begin in May, they have less sugar and more acidity, thus we have to adjust the amount of sugar, water and fresh squeezed lemon we add to each batch. As we get into June and the end of the local strawberry season, the sun gets stronger and the strawberries get sweeter and less acidic, thus we have to adjust the sugars, water and lemon content. Each fruit that arrives to our kitchen, we eat, checking and commenting on where it is in the lifecylce. It is a delicate and alive balance, which always changes and forces us to be in contact with our ingredients. The texture alone will make the difference between an excellent or subpar gelato, and we are obsessed, possessed and turned on by only the most exquisite gelato. So, although we have a set recipe with its balance worked out, we make adjustments depending on where the fruit is at. It is the technical side of the craft of artisanal gelato. So, back to the subject of the who's got the best shit down here in Buenos Aires. Chungo has it when you are going to be in the city of Buenos Aires, but if you are going to be in the delta region of Tigre, you must go to Via Toscana, that is where you will find the old grump of Osvaldo, who will tell you of how many times they have offered him a space within the city of Buenos Aires for him to open up a store, and how he can't stand them suite people, and how he loves cracking open each egg and bringing in his coconut from Ceylon. He is the maestro heladero and you will be happy if you look him up and eat his goods.

Palermo

2009-02-20T01:35:00.001-08:00

You know, no matter if it is our barrio back home of Adams Morgan or our barrio abroad of Palermo, we love to find those joints which we can walk to in the morning for our coffee and in the evening for good food. There has to be ambiance, good prices and obviously good food & coffee. Back in DC, our neighborhood cafe is the venerable Tryst. Any days off that we have from the shop, we go to burrow ourselves into an old couch, sip good coffee and get lost in a good piece of literature. Our go to cafe here in Buenos Aires is Oui Oui. It is a cute little cafe that has an amazing selection of pastries and pretty decent coffee. It took me awhile to find a coffee that I liked, but I finally settled on ´cafe con crema´ and now I don´t stray from it very often. It´s a couple of minutes from our apartment and fulfills what we need in the morning, when we can actually get up early enough to enjoy our desayuno. Most nights we don´t get to bed before 4am down here, it reminds me of my schedule back in the days when i haunted the engineering halls of Georgia Tech, what a weird fucking phase that was. Anyways, for our evenings, say around 11pm, when we feel like getting something good to eat, we have found a place called Las Cabras. The sign on the menu says ¨cacerola horno & leña¨, which roughly translates to ¨casserole wood burning oven¨, which for me is what food is all about: wood burning oven, wood burning grill and simple unadulterated ingredients, ´comida de campo´, as it is called down here. Las Cabras is about a 5 minute walk from our apartment and has a huge outdoor seating area with an open kitchen, where you can see the two tier wood burning grill and the domed wood burning oven. The place is always packed, no matter if you arrive at 12 noon or 12 midnight. They have meat and entrails off the grill, fresh salads and all kinds of plates cooked in the wood burning oven. Charred, smoky and hot, it reminds me alot of Buenos Aires, charred, smoky and hot, how else would you want your life to be.

Persicco

2009-02-15T07:32:00.000-08:00

Persicco is our favorite heladeria out of the big 3 in Buenos Aires, the other two being Freddo and Volta. Still, our favorite, by light years, remains one heladeria in Tigre called Via Toscana. It is incredible how much gelato these folks consume. Persicco is open until 2am during the week and til 4am for the weekends, that will give you an idea. We are eating dinner at 1am and sitting on rooftops talking, drinking and smoking with friends until the sun comes up the next day. It is such a nice and true break from life back in the USofA. There is another flow down here and each time I return, I understand this flow a little bit more. So much more tranquilo, less programmed and a lot more go-with-the-flow. I could get used to this slow-flow pretty easy. Who knows, maybe someday I will, again.

Buenos Aires

2009-02-07T22:42:00.000-08:00

Here we are once again on the eve of our journey, a journey to the burgeoning sleepless city of Buenos Aires, where the airs are warm and full of possibility, where we leave the house at night not knowing for sure what we will find. It's one of the things I like most about South America, that feeling of controlled chaos, allowing for so much creativity to arise, arising more out of necessity than for any other reason. So, we go to find our family, friends and memories, walking down every street and perched inside of every cafe. We will be going for a month this time, which will allow us to sink a little deeper in the relaxed flow that is South America, and shaking off a little of our crazed city rhythms that we so willingly carry back here. We will be returning in the first week of March, just in time for the arrival of spring, farmers markets and rising gelato sales.

So, we wish everyone a happy rest-of-the-winter & we will be seeing you come spring time. Bon Voyage.

PASA Conference 2009

2009-02-06T08:41:00.001-08:00

Violeta and I returned late last night from the PASA Conference, held at Penn State University from Wednesday to Sunday. We were invited as speakers to talk about creating artisanal gelato using local ingredients. It was an incredible experience, mostly for the fact that the place was teeming with farmers, activists and environmentalists, all interested and directly involved in the local and sustainable movement. We were privileged to be among so many people who are the bedrock of our local farming community, and it felt such an honor to be in a position to help them make their farm operations more profitable and sustainable.

Of course, with the conference being held at Penn State, the first thing we did upon arriving and getting checked in, was to scramble over to the famous Berkey Creamery. I have always heard so much about it and it definitely didn't disappoint us, even though it was the heavier american ice cream. We are pretty much ice cream sluts over here, to be frank with you, albeit sophisticated ice cream sluts, because, although we like many, we also recognize the good stuff.

Ovarian Cancer Benefit

2009-02-02T18:38:00.001-08:00

Tomorrow evening, Violeta will be serving up a beautiful coppetta at the Ritz Carlton, alongside a slew of other women chef's in the DC area for the annual Ovarian Cancer Benefit. We will be serving a CHOCOLATE SICHUAN PEPPER COPPETTA, which consist of a scoop of chocolate sichuan pepper gelato, a scoop of sumatra cinnamon gelato, a dash of tia maria espresso reduction, all served up with a piece of cinnamon shortbread, compliments of Pollystyle. I will be there to support, scoop and gab all night long. Hopefully we will see some of you good folk at this event to raise money for a very important cause.

Hookie

2009-01-28T17:56:00.001-08:00

We finally got a little bit of the white stuff! Although it was only about an inch-and-a-half, and although the forecasters got everybody's hopes up with their tall tales of three-to-five inches, and although the rainy day washed everything away so quickly, we still love to play hookie from Dolcezza and go out in the snow. We feel like the principal at our own school calling off the school-day so all the kids can stay home and play. We are the kids, we are the principal and on this day, there was no school.

Happenings

2009-01-23T20:06:00.001-08:00

Dolcezza in the wintertime. What do we do over here when it gets cold out and we have fewer folks braving the cold to come partake in frigid sin? Well, it gives us more time to huddle around our kitchen and dream up new concoctions and creations. We have recently developed a crush on the tongue numbing sichuan peppercorns. They are citrusy, gingery, black peppery and leave the tongue ever slightly so numb. All this without being too hot, so we don't have to worry so much about it overtaking other more subtle flavors. We have come up with a couple of superb gelati using this rare fascinating ingredient. The first is CHOCOLATE SICHUAN PEPPER: a combination of chocolate gelato, espresso, fresh ground sumatra cinnamon and a bit of the fresh ground sichuan pepper. The result is a complex unfolding of a rich spicy chocolate with a warm exotic finish that tastes of black pepper, lemon & ginger. We have also created GINGER SICHUAN PEPPER: we grind ginger root, mix it with a little fresh ground sichuan pepper, a tiny hint of fresh ground cinnamon and infuse this into our cream base. The ginger is complimented in the background with the sichuan pepper and subtle sweet & spicy notes of cinnamon. Not neglecting the fruits, we have also been wallowing in Meyer Lemons, Pomegranates, Clementines, Seville Oranges, Honey Tangerines and Blood Oranges. Although we love dearly the local summer fruit season here at Dolcezza, some of our favorite flavors come out of the kitchen during the wintertime, full of the bright acidic citrus fruits.
Coming up in a couple of weeks is the PASA conference, which is held in State College, PA. It is the largest conference on sustainability and local farming on the east coast, bringing together over 1,900 farmers, processors, consumers, students, environmentalists, and business and community leaders. The conference does not focus entirely on practical training for farmers. The 2004 event featured addresses by well-known environmentalist Paul Hawken; human rights advocate Anuradha Mittal; and Percy Schmeiser, a Canadian canola farmer who was sued by Monsanto Corporation for patent infringement after his crops were cross-pollinated with genetically modified canola. These speakers helped underscore the conference's role as a forum for alternative voices in agriculture. Keynote speakers in recent years have been such visionaries as William McDonough, Vandana Shiva, Jim Hightower, Winona LaDuke, Mark Ritchie and John Ikerd. Violeta & i will be participating in the Advanced Cheesemaking Track where we will talk about using local farm fresh ingredients in the production of our gelato. We will talk about everything from the advantages to the difficulties and the expenses associated with using local ingredients. We will also talk about start-up costs and equipment associated with making artisanal gelato. A lot of folks don't understand the costs that go into the making of our gelato in Georgetown. One example of this, is that every 10 days we drive our refrigerated van up to York, Pa. to pick up our cream, whole milk, skim milk and butter from the brothers at Perrydell Dairy Farm. The round trip takes us about 5 hours. If I told you that they milked the cows and bottled the milk the same day we drive up to get our dairy, you probably wouldn't believe me, so i won't even bother telling you...alright, yes i will.
So, if you folks have some extra time on your hands, come up and join us at this amazing conference, sure to be filled with loads of hippies, farmers and good food.

Hope

2009-01-19T21:38:00.000-08:00

It's unbelievable the vibes that are running and streaking through our city streets these days. Everyone seems to be walking around in a state of bliss & euphoria. It feels a bit like a dream when i am able to sit back far enough and observe it from a distance. I knew that it was going to be a HUGE moment, but living inside of it, and at the epicenter of it all, makes it all feel so much more significant. Violeta and i were talking with Ris Lacoste at the farmers' market this weekend, whom we adore and feel so much respect for. I said that it must have felt something like this during the 60's, with so many people coming together in the country, hopeful for change and new possibilities. She said that it was probably an even more significant event, which i have been chewing on and pondering ever since. I don't really know if it is or not, i obviously wasn't around then, and i am around now, but whether it is or not, it has certainly created this HUGE momentum, which is super exhilarating and inspiring to feel and be a part of.
So, with all this inspiration floating around everywhere, it has got me dreaming about all things Dolcezza and the part we play in the burgeoning DC culinary scene. This coming spring we will perform a total renovation to our kitchen, creating much more space and getting all new appliances, replete with knives, Kitchen Aid mixer and marble tables. I have visions of creating a beautiful coppeta menu with granitas, sauces, ganaches, pralines, whipped cream, mini gourmet cones, etc. It's all a part of completing our concept for our gelateria. We are also going to put in a full coffee bar with loads of home-made pastries and putting pints on gourmet market shelves in the local DC area. There are so many ideas, it is just a matter of choosing the ones which we can do at a deep and thorough level, just like we do with our gelati & espresso drinks.
So, hopefully all you folks will be out there in the crowds and cold to be a part of this special day in history. Come by if you want to warm up with a coffee or gelato, we will be hanging at the shop, a-hoping and a-dreaming.

Coffee & Biscotti

2009-01-16T12:14:00.001-08:00

Well, first of all folks, Happy Inauguration! It has been a long time coming, hasn't it?! It is the first time we are here for an inauguration and it is kinda exciting, seeing all the buzz and attention that DC is getting around this event and the change that is on the near horizon. You can feel it in the air. Along with all the politicos descending upon our city, there are a whole lot of foodie folks as well.
So, as we are locked down in this arctic spell, we have been staying inside our shop eating gelato and hovering around our precious coffee and newly found biscotti treats, compliments of Gilda's Biscotti. Gilda came by our store several months ago and left a note saying that she would like to work with us. So, we gave her a ring and she sent us a huge box of samples. After polishing off the entire box in a couple of hours, we wanted more. So, we started with 4 flavors: Chocolate Espresso, Chocolate Hazelnut, Almond Anise & Candied Orange and Almond. True authentic biscotti with wonderful flavor combinations and great texture. We have also started working with Polly Brown, who makes our cinnamon shortbreads and honey graham crackers. They literally melt in your mouth and you can tell she doesn't skimp on the butter. We are beginning to fill our shop with treats from local artisans to compliment our gelati & espresso. So, even though it is a bit cold out, and probably will be for a couple of more months, come by and check out our new treats before we end up eating them all.

Our house...

2009-01-11T18:19:00.000-08:00

...is a very-very-very fine house...

Nicaragua

2009-01-11T17:23:00.001-08:00

On Tuesday morning, i take a plane to Managua, Nicaragua. I was invited to go, along with several folks in the DC area by Counter Culture Coffee. They take a small group of people every year to their coffee co-op for the annual harvest trip with their customers. We will spend a night in Managua, and then head up into the mountains to Matagalpa, finally going to the farm for 5 nights and staying at Finca Esperanza Verde. We will spend our time learning and participating in the harvest of coffee, visiting many fincas and cacao plantations, and learning how to make tamales. It should be an amazing experience and for sure, i will have my camera strapped and loaded everywhere i go. See you in about a week with loads of photos & stories.

Fotos de Luis

2009-01-04T23:03:00.001-08:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR FOLKS! We hope that you all had a nice calm, frazzled time for the holidays. My parent-in-laws were in town for the holidays from Argentina and Italy, and to entertain, we took them to Philadelphia & New York City, and as always, New York rocks, exhausts, enthralls & inspires holiday-style. Luis, Violeta's father is an amazing photograper & i thought i would share several shots with you to welcome in the NEW YEAR. Also, just to note a couple of very special flavors we spun up this week at the shop:
MEYER LEMON MASCARPONE - fresh squeezed meyer lemons delicately balanced with Blue Ridge Dairy mascarpone. it reminds me of lemon meringue pie that my grandmother would make back in the days.
CHOCOLATE SICHUAN PEPPER - our chocolate gelato with notes of espresso, cinnamon & fresh ground sichuan peppers, a flavor so delicate and deep with an aromatic finish of spicy peppercorns.

These photos span pigeons, people, & carrots and captures them so well. Most are in B/W, which i like a lot. nostalgic & warm.

Gracias Luis y Dandi! - espero q estan durmiendo en el avion mientras q escribo estas palabras. Te queremos mucho! los 3.

TREE & LEAF CARROTS

DUPONT FARMERS' MARKET

OLIVES IN NYC

PIGEON IN THE RAIN

PEOPLE IN THE RAIN

VIOLE IN DC

ME @ MARLOW & SONS

DANDI @ GREAT FALLS

OUR LIL GEORGETOWN SHOP

Although Luis didn't show up in any of the photos, he is in every one. Gracias Luis!

Feliz Fiestas

2008-12-23T17:03:00.001-08:00

Well, first of all, Happy Holidays from all of us at Dolcezza. We know we have been a bit lame for not posting in our blog as of late, but creativity comes in cycles, and there should be no forcing it, as least, that's how we roll.
We decided to come up to NYC to spend a week in the city, as we had family in from Argentina and Italy and there is no better way to entertain than NYC during xmas. So, we have been on a tear, roving the city, seeing friends and eating good grub. A couple of notable places we ate at were Marlow & Sons and August. After eating at Marlow and Sons we passed by their new venture, Marlow and Daughters, which is a butcher shop run by Tom Mylan, specializing in local grass-fed beef, and all things pork. I had read some things written by Tom and wanted to meet him, and he was a very approachable and a super informed, passionate guy. We chatted for a good while about locally sourced beef, a 22,000 square-foot cheese aging cave, and the changes that are happening in the local food scene everywhere. I found the photo above on gothamist today, which was taken as i was having this conversation with Tom, i am the one on the side of the photo below 16 layers of clothes, it is cold up here!

photo credit: Katie Sokoler/Gothamist

Gobble, Gobble

2008-11-27T14:32:00.000-08:00

Well, we just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving day, those days filled with so many memories and moments. We thank you all for coming by and supporting us in our 2 stores and 4 farmers markets. It is a beautiful journey getting to know the local seasons and ingredients, always changing, year to year. We hope you are all watching lots of crappy movies, eating loads of stuffing and finishing it off with exquisite gelato!

Farmland Feast Foto

2008-11-18T19:02:00.000-08:00

So, here is the photo that they snapped of us at the end of the feast. We showed up at 4pm and didn't get out til after 11pm. It was a super fun and super intense experience. We had to set up 2 stations in the kitchen in order to hustle out 300 apps, 300 first course plates, 300 second course plates, 150 cheese plates and finally 300 dessert plates. There were 15 chefs total who formed the team and we all helped each other out with the plates. It was a blast and Sebastian, the wine guy from Proof kept bringing back bottle after bottle of wine and champagne, keeping all the chefs in the kitchen happy. Needless to say, by the time dessert rolled around, we were all having a grand time...it's not too difficult to spot the "happiest" ones in the photo, the one dork and the one purdy lady dressed in black in the middle. Hopefully we will rock this event again next year, it was truly a wonderful time.

Farmland Feast

2008-11-07T19:21:00.000-08:00

On Monday, November the 10th, we will be joining FRESHFARM Markets in their annual FARMLAND FEAST at the Ritz Carlton. We will be working alongside 14 local area chefs to create a 5-course autumnal dinner. Violeta & i will be pairing up with Kate Jansen, from Willow Restaurant. We will be spinning an acorn squash gelato and cooking a bourbon pecan praline to drizzle on top; this will be paired with a pear tart made by Kate. Should be lots of fun and hopefully we will get to eat some of the food back in the kitchen because there are some really amazing chefs on the line-up.

espresso & graffiti

2008-10-29T19:10:00.001-07:00

Well, we have officially ended the "high season" over here at Dolcezza, which means the nights get cooler, the days shorter and our little gelateria becomes a tad bit lonelier. In one way it's nice to be in such a seasonal business, because we get to calm down and organize a bit after very intense summer periods, on the other hand, it kinda sucks, because the store gets slow, the money gets pinched and we get a little lonely over here in our store(s). It's also a bit of ashame for the clients who don't eat gelato year-round, like our crazy selves, because of all the beautiful fall/winter flavors they miss out on, like the blood oranges, meyer lemons, crook neck pumpkins, pears, ciders, chestnuts, oh I could go on forever.
Another good thing about the cold weather is what it does to our morning coffee experience. It almost takes on a spiritual dimension and warms the soul deeply.
I was out and about the other day and came across these murals, compliments of Shepard Fairey, aka OBEY. I think he was here wheat pasting his Obama posters and he so graciously decorated us with some other nice work.
So, don't be a bore during the cold, come on over and and warm up with a carefully crafted espresso & a nice creamy gelato.

Dear blog

2008-10-14T17:29:00.000-07:00

Well, it has been awhile since I have sat down and touched the ole keyboard to update you folks on all the happenings; it surely has nothing to do with the fact that there is nothing happening, it has more to do with the whole process of "re-entry" from a 2 week road trip through the New England states during peak foliage. Violeta & i took a drive with no set destination through upstate New York and the Adirondacks, then we skirted over lake Champlain into Vermont, then on over to the state of New Hampshire into the White Mountains and finally over to the small coastal towns of Maine. We were blown away by what we saw; the small quiet towns, the impressive size of the mountains, the Kandinsky colors of sugar maples exploding in all their brilliant colors and finally the quaint towns running down the coast of Maine. We are still in a state of excited stupor. At the end of the trip, we found ourselves in Brooklyn participating in the largest street festival we have ever seen, the Atlantic Antic. We set up our tent with Robert Berry, Ricky King, Leo Marino and Bev Eggleston and his glorious EcoFriendly pork. It was an amazing experience and we rocked wood grilled Obama pork burgers and Joe Biden gelato for 8 hours non-stop, all to the throbbing crowd of more than 1 million people. The gathering was the first time for the gastrofreaks and we had an amazing time together.
So, now that fall is upon us, we are throwing it into full gear with the likes of AMERICAN CHESTNUT, SECKEL PEAR, APPLE CIDER, POMEGRANATE, CROOK NECK PUMPKIN, VERMONT MAPLE SYRUP, ACORN SQUASH, FUYU PERSIMMON, CLEMENTINES, SEVILLE ORANGES, BLOOD ORANGES AND MEYER LEMONS. There are no sad folks over here to see the summer go, we are thrilled by change and the chance to dazzle with beautiful fall bounty. Hope to see you around!

Perrydell Farm Dairy

2008-09-20T18:51:00.000-07:00

So, every other Friday, Dimas & i get into the van and drive north for about 2 hours, until we arrive in York, Pa, to Perrydell Farm Dairy. 171 acres of beautiful rolling hills, with a small winding stream running through the farm. That's where we go to pick up our cream, whole milk, skim milk, chocolate milk and butter. Perrydell Farm Dairy supplies all of our dairy needs and it is the end to a very long search to find a dairy supplier, one where we know the folks and the cows and the land and the philosophy. These connections, with these kind of people takes what we do to a whole new level, it shows us how this is so much more than just running a shop and making artisanal gelato. It becomes about these people, and how they live and of how lucky we are to have these fresh, cared-for ingredients.
Every Friday when we drive up to York, they are milking the cows and bottling the milk, that very same day. The freshness and clean taste of their milk makes us all swoon over at the shop as their dairy is a thing of beauty & i won't even try to explain what it does for our cappuccino.
This last Friday, when we arrived, they had just finished birthing a baby calf. The photo above shows the mom and the blurry new born resting in a century old barn. Tom Perry, one of the brothers running the farm, showed us where he dug forts and tunnels through the massive bales of hay when he was a kid, and where he had his first kiss. It sounds so cliche, but i guess it's really the way it happens. It would be a kids dream to grow up with a barn in the backyard, like having access to this whole other world. Anyways, Tom & his lil brother Chip are some really cool folk.
This is the milking parlor where Tom brings in the cows and extracts the beautiful milk. Pretty cool & sci-fi , huh?

Blooming Buzzing Confusion

2008-09-14T21:01:00.001-07:00

It always happens, somehow it always comes around. Fall. We say good-bye to a spectacular summer! The fruit was juicy, sweet, acidic, tart...superb. To name a few things we pulled off over at the ole shop @ 1560. We spun Virginia blueberries with local lemon verbena, lemon [keswick creamery] ricotta & cardamom, chocolate with roasted & salted Virginia peanuts, avocado [toigo orchard] raw honey & orange, Pennslyvannia cantaloupe spiked with Pernod, mojito with [gardeners gourmet] peppermint and of course, chocolate with [truck patch] maple glazed bacon, yup, that's right, we had to do it, we had to be cool. So, now as we slowly drift into fall, we replace the bright sunny acidic fruits with the earthen warm fall bounty: bosc pear, apple cider, quince, acorn squash, hubbard & crook neck pumpkins and all the like. It surely aint no time to cry, just to say good-bye.
We are about to go away for a little while. Head to the coast and soak our minds for a couple of weeks. This inevitably happens to us every summer, we begin to burn out and the only solution is to pull out completely, and not think about running a store for a little while.
We have a lot of cool events lined up this fall when we return. We go to Atlantic Antic with the crew from Westend bistro and Bev Eggleston from Eco-Friendly Foods. We will be making pork burgers, chicharron, pickles and gelato. They say over a million people show up between 10am & 6pm.
We will be participating in the FRESHFARM FARMLAND FEAST in November at the Ritz Carlton. There is an amazing line up of chefs and we are paired with Kate from Willow and will be doing a very special dessert.
Finally in February, we will be on a panel at PASA, speaking about the multitudes of positives from working with local farmers and using their ingredients in our gelati. It is the largest conference of its kind on the east coast.
So, lots happening over here. We are just trying to come down from the blooming buzzing confusion of summer season. It was most insane!

New York Times article

2008-09-03T19:27:00.000-07:00

We were featured in a very nice article today in the New York Times, discussing the emerging and wide-open market for gelato in this country.

NYTimes

--photo by Daniel Rosenbaum--

Dupont Farmers' Market

2008-08-31T13:51:00.001-07:00

Dupont Circle Farmers' Market stretches itself out every Sunday from 9 in the morning til 1 in the afternoon. It is one of the most vibrant farmers' markets on the entire East Coast. Roughly 3 to 4,000 people stroll through during the ultra-fast 4 hours. Today was an exceptional day, full of people, sunshine and the breeze. We layed out an array of 15 flavors of gelati & sorbetti. One in particular, Green Zebra Tomato Habanero is almost a savory sorbetto, and pairs beautifully with a tuna tartar. We drank our share of chocolate milk, chatted with the fab cheese maker, made out with the Freestone peaches, swiped some rock'n crab cakes and had a good ole time. No place within or around DC can match this vibe, as the farmers' swoop down and save the day by throwing a little dirt on the scene.
This past Friday, we drove up to York, PA and picked up our weekly supply of cream, whole milk, non-fat milk, butter and chocolate milk from the brothers at Perrydell Farm Dairy. Their cows are treated like cows and their dairy is super clean, rich and fresh. Wanna know how fresh? Well, as we drove the 2 hours to the farm on Friday, they were milking the cows and bottling the milk. Any fresher, we are gonna have to get ourselves a cow, don't think so. All dairy in our store comes from the Perry's farm, the milk in the cappuccino's, the butter in the churro's and the cream in the gelati. Pardon our French, but there ain't no better way of doing things. Once you partake of food from the local scene, you can't go back, and if you do go back, you suffer like a dog. It's like sitting in First Class and then going back to Economy. It sucks! So, come out and support your local farmers' and producers', they deserve it and so do you.

Washington Post article

2008-08-25T15:37:00.000-07:00

A nice little article about gelato-ology, her first!

WaPo article

Enjoy

-- photo by Susan Biddle --

US Botanic Garden

2008-08-17T18:44:00.001-07:00

This Saturday we were invited to speak and give a gelato demo in the ONE PLANET - OURS exhibition at the US Botanic Garden. FRESHFARM Market asked us out and we had a good ole time, setting up our station and showing how we create our Peppermint Granizado gelato under their big tent right next door to the gardens. Our peppermint was grown by Cinda Sebastian at Gardeners' Gourmet, who grows such wicked herbs for us at our store, this mint has a menthol aroma and cuts through the fat of the cream so smoothly. It was a beautiful day with a nice breeze whipping through the tent and the audience was full of hungry and curious kids. After the demo we served our peppermint gelato and answered questions for over an hour, it was a very delightful time, being around all those folks, who are involved in activities, trying to make a difference. Since joining the farmers markets, we have connected with some amazing people: talented chefs, artisan farmers and dedicated community organizers, pushing us harder and deeper down the path of making artisanal gelato, it's such a sweet path.
On another note, we picked up our first bunch of Green Zebra tomatoes this weekend at 14 & U Farmers' Market. They are super sweet and acidic, almost tart, we will see how they spin up.

Pollito debut

2008-08-09T13:58:00.000-07:00

So our little pollito, or to the "gringos", our little chicken is making his, hers or its debut appearance on GELATO-OLOGY. It is our little yellow Volkswagen bug and she rocks for city living! This is what pollito looks like every friday as i take her to the Mclean Farmers Market off of chain bridge road. I return back to our store full of blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, yellow peaches, sugar baby watermelons, cilantro, jalepeno, lavender, lemon thyme and lemon verbena. It has become one of my favorite markets, i love to hang out and shoot the breeze with Rose & Alma from Westmoreland Berry Farm. Really cool ladies. We have about one full month left of the super summer bounty from our local area farms. We will be sad to see the glory go, but also welcome the transition into ciders, pears, pumpkins and squashes. hmmmmmmmm, it's such a pleasure making artisan gelato with these amazing ingredients from super cool folks, who arrive to our town each week and bring us to our senses. that will be all for now, see you folks at Dupont market tomorrow...

just chill'n

2008-08-02T20:16:00.000-07:00

Today, Violeta & i were at the 14th & U Farmers Market as special guest. Robin Shuster invited us out for the Dog Days of Summer party going on and we were super stoked about setting up shop in our hood, we walked 5 blocks to arrive. The vibes were super cool, fresh and urban. Lots of people curious about our gelati and asking many questions. We sold out of 7 flavors in between 9am and 1pm. It was nice to see so many new people. We are now seriously considering joining this market for the rest of the year. We just want to be careful with our new projects and make sure we can manage them, but this market was really special, and like i said, this is our hood, yo! So, stay tuned, we may just set up shop again, for good?!
Tomorrow is our Dupont market, for which i think Violeta & i are going to lay low. Two girls from the shop will be running the market for us - thanks Lu and Sabri!! We haven't had many days off in the last 4 months, so it will be nice to wake up late, "shake dreams for our hair", take a book down to Tryst and drink good CCC coffee. Summer is always the time when the gelato-ologists go quite mad, and there jest aint no gett'n around it, it's jest the way it is.
So, as we look out over the sleepy city night tonigt, we say goodbye, goodnight and we can't wait to do nuthin tomorrow. Yeeee-haaawwwwwww, now.

14th & U Farmers Market

2008-07-27T19:23:00.001-07:00

This Saturday, August the 2nd, from 9am to 1pm, we will be setting up a stand in the 14th & U Farmers Market for the Dog Days of Summer Sidewalk Sale. Robin Shuster invited us to come out and join the party and we couldn't refuse, as this is our hood and we are in the peak of summer fruit season. We will be spinning up and bringing over 14 flavors of our gelati: YELLOW PEACH BOURBON, WHITE PEACH PROSECCO, LEMON OPAL BASIL, LIME CILANTRO, FORMOSA PLUM, BLACKBERRY, RASPBERRY, BASIL, SAGE, MASCARPONE, LEMON RICOTTA CARDAMOM, VALRHONA CHOCOLATE AMARGO, DULCE DE LECHE & TOSCANO ESPRESSO. Last year over 4,000 people descended on this event, so we will be packing our coolers full readying for the hordes. We hope to see a lot of folks out there, and who knows, you may just see Brangelina!?

& then there were two

2008-07-17T19:59:00.000-07:00

Well, we have been a bit in the dark over here at dolcezza, as of late, been trying to get our hands around the fact that we now have 2 stores, instead of one. This photo was taken at the very beginning of the birthing process, right after we had unloaded the crate, full of decor shipped from Argentina. All in all we are very pleased with how far we have come in a month's time. The hardest part was not knowing the demand in Bethesda, so we didn't know how much to produce for the day, and we do not keep any stock, so we can always serve our gelato which has been produced that very same day. So, we ran around a lot producing late at night and early in the morning trying to make sure we could open our store with 24 pans of freshly made gelati. Some days we opened with only 20 or 21 pans, which we didn't mind, we just wanted to make sure that we had the same quality gelato in Bethesda as we did in Georgetown. So, now 4 weeks into the process, we are feeling good about our daily production and daily delivery. It has been exhaustive and sleepless but deeply satisfying.
There are many things to talk about. 1 new farmer's market in Falls Church, sour cherries, blackberries, raspberries, black raspberries, blueberries, opal basil, apricots, peaches, plums, and we are just getting started. So, now that we are out of our little hole, feeling a little more rested and open-eyed, we will be posting some nice photos of our latest happenings.
Be seeing ya around.

Muchas Gracias

2008-06-29T14:05:00.001-07:00

Well, what can we say?! We are totally humbled and extremely pleased with how our little gelato get-down went this past Thursday night. By the end of the 5 hours, we had served over 1,000 folks. It was so gratifying to open our space and share it with the new neighborhood. We had such a good time, who knows, we could do one of these things more often. Keep posted, yo!

Free Gelato Fiesta

2008-06-22T17:01:00.000-07:00

We invite all & everyone out to our GRAND OPENING FIESTA this coming Thursday, June 26, at our Bethesda location (7111 Bethesda Lane, Bethesda, MD 20814) from 6pm to 11pm. We will be spinning over 300 gallons and giving it all away until there is no more. So, come with your friends, family, enemies and strangers and join us in our newly opened store in Bethesda. We hope to see you there so together we can create mass gelato pandemonium.

Bethesda Row...FINALLY!!!

2008-06-15T18:16:00.000-07:00

Well, we've gone and done it.
After 2 floods with 2 ruined wood floors and a burnt out compressor on the brand new air-conditioning unit, we opened our Bethesda store on Friday the 13th. So appropriate, wouldn't ya say. In our family, 13 is a lucky number, so we feel it was a good sign after all we have been through the past couple of months. Needless to say, we have not slept for the last couple of weeks, and this weekend felt like one long dream, as we opened the doors and served our gelato. We were in shock at the number of people who poured into our store. The line never stopped. So, we leave you with a couple of images from our opening night and hope to see you around in the new hood.

Bethesda Row cometh

2008-06-03T18:20:00.000-07:00

Oh my God, we are sooo freakin close, we can taste it. We have passed our Electrical, Health and Fire Inspections and are awaiting our Plumbing, Mechanical and Building, and as soon as we have them, we will spin up 24 flavors of fresh gelati and make our first delivery to our brand-new shop and swing the doors wide open. We are fabulously freakin excited, and we aint gettin no kind of sleep over here, just dreaming away with our new little gelateria, comin to a neighborhood near you.

We [heart] NYC

2008-06-01T11:08:00.000-07:00

Each time we go, we fall a little bit more in love with you, NYC. We went a couple of weekends ago and, as always, did our little food and coffee tour. We checked out Gimme Coffee's first Manhattan store, over on Mott Street and chatted a bit with Mike White, a super nice guy, and sipped an amazingly balanced shot of Leftist Espresso.
We then strolled over to Ninth Street Espresso in the Chelsea Market and were once again blown away by the shot of Hairbender Espresso, which is roasted by the rock-stars, Stumptown Coffee Roasters. I have to admit, I had my virgin experience with Stumptown when I lived in Portland, they were the first folks who opened my eyes to coffee, and I have never had an espresso equal to that of Hairbender. Ninth Street Espresso is only 1 of 2 cafes that carry Stumptown coffees, whom are bringing their roasters to NYC with the Ace Hotel.
We also hit up Joe's the art of coffee and by that time we were all overly-caffeinated, so we headed over to Grom to meld the espresso with gelato. Grom's second location is in West Village. The gelato was OK. We ate at Grom when they opened about a year ago in the Upper West and were very impressed, but this time the texture was a bit gritty and the flavors were just OK. It's still much better than most American ice creams, though. To top off the coffee and gelato tour, we passed by Cone's on Bleeker Street and ate some Dulce de Leche gelato and had a chat with the owner, who was very nice.
Of course, we had to eat some food, to balance everything out, and ate some great food at Blue Ribbon Sushi and then the next day at Pastis. So, I would say for one and a half days, we had quite a culinary experience. We always come back so inspired to create whenever we visit NYC, so we are glad to be back in the kitchen and at the La Marzocco machine trying to bring to life everything we tasted. Thanks again NYC for your inspire, we shall return soon.

In love with Bethesda Row

2008-05-28T21:16:00.001-07:00

There's this ineffable joy one feels when a project of this dimension has come to a near completion, a joy augmented ten-fold by everything we have gone through to get to this point, sweet joy. Our space has already spoken, though very painful to us, our store has determined that it wants to be donned in beautifully clean and quaint mosaic tile floors, and she now sings with her new, and god hopes, last floor. So, as becomes clear from the photos, los dolcezzitos have been sitting around on the ceramic tile floors falling in love with their second store, which is just another step on this insane ride of making artisanal gelato. We will be doing a deep clean this weekend and closing up any minor changes resulting from our inspections this week, and who knows, we may just open our doors next week and bring the goodness to our northern neighbor of MD! We are beyond anxious to start the dazzle.

Mosaic Floors in Bethesda Row

2008-05-26T19:18:00.001-07:00

So, we have completed the installation of floor numero tres, and, for painfully obvious reasons, it is not a wood floor, we have chosen to go with a mosaic tile floor. After all that has passed, we actually think we like the mosaic floors better than the wood, and not just because they are more water-proof, but because it gives a totally different feel to the space, a bit more refined, classical and european. What we lost in the warmth from the wood floors has been more than compensated from the mosaic floors. They certainly open the space up a bit more and make it feel bigger. This week we are going to start the final inspection process and goddess willing, we hope to pass and open up for the weekend, but PLEASE do not take this as any prediction, as we have been burned too many times already. We will just say that we are super happy with our 3rd floor and are super anxious to open our doors and bring our gelati to a new land.
Remember, we are going to give away a ton of gelato 2 weeks after opening our doors. We will announce to everyone the exact date and time.
In the meantime, enjoy the images of a beautiful gelateria to come.

Bethesda Row [take that!*@?!]

2008-05-20T19:38:00.001-07:00

So, I am never going to make a prediction for a store opening again. Last Wednesday we finished installing our new hardwood floors. That night, the water line to our newly installed La Marzocco GB5 espresso machine "popped off" and flooded our store, thus ruining our hardwood floors. Sound familiar? Sort of a Shining-like deja-vu. Well, shit-hell-fire, that's just what happened, another flood and another floor bites the dust. We finished taking it up today, tossing it to the graveyard. We didn't even feel like writing about it, feeling like a bunch of losers, how many wood floors does it take?! or maybe it's how many people does it take to install a wood floor?! something like that!#*@ Anyways, we have listened to the wood floor gods and gone out and bought a real old fashioned mosaic tile floor, flood proof and all!? So, with a little bit of luck and lots of good ole voodoo, we will do the install this week. When are we opening? Who can say anymore at this point! 10 days? 12 days?
The only thing I can say, is that we are going off in our Wisconsin Ave store, spinning lots of locally grown Virginia strawberries, Maryland mints and Pennslyvania Lemon Ricotta Cardamom. After all is said and done, we will be throwing down hard with a big cathartic celebration. We will open "quietly" and get familiar with our new territory and then approximately 2 weeks after opening we will give away gelato for the entire night, just to get it all out of our system, all 300 gallons or so. What a dramatic build-up it has been, and what a dramatic gelato throwdown it will be. So, stay tuned for the date of the opening and the date of the insane give away. We will make it, this I assure you, come hell or high water. We leave you with a Black & White image of our new sign in Bethesda, which at least is waterproof and is hanging outside of our store right now.

Bethesda Row [take 4]

2008-05-11T17:40:00.001-07:00

Well, here we are checking out the scene in our soon to be 2nd locale. Most of the hardwood floors were installed on Saturday and they are beautiful. They add a touch of warmth to the space, especially alongside the cool marble bar. We hope to pass through our inspections unscathed and will open the following week, say May the 20th, just in time for my mum's birthday, would be kinda cool, actually. So, for now we are just taking it easy on a green rainy night, prepping for another day of running around like a bunch of Cuckoo's. In the meantime, we received our first strawberries of the spring from Westmoreland Berry Farm in Virginia, of which I will write more about in the next couple of days. Just trying to take in the cool breezy Sunday night. Be talk'n to you later.

Bethesda Row [take 3]

2008-04-24T03:46:00.000-07:00

So, here is a first sneak peak of our lovely soon-to-be gelateria. This at least will give you a an idea of the layout of the space, and now we just need to fill in the details. As you can see our floor is back to being a concrete slab, after the wood floors were ruined from the flood. We are awaiting our new wood floors, paint, track lights, walk-in freezer connection and outdoor sign and we should be good to go. Hopefully, this means an opening around the 15th of May. We shall see.

Farmers' Market

2008-04-13T18:24:00.000-07:00

This is how our Sunday began, today, with light coming up over the clouds and spilling into our little shop, illuminating the newly adorned windows. First, we began with our morning coffee, obviously, and then quickly loaded our van to head to the Dupont Farmers' market. MAN!! it is so good to be back at the market, filled with folks who grow, raise, produce and appreciate good food. Today we spoke about having a farmers retreat on Bev's land at Eco Friendly Foods and brainstorming up a local food movement, and then we chatted with Melanie from Keswick Creamery about how we are in the middle of, and at the forefront of a food revolution, brought to you by these folks who bring their goods from their farms and fill our city streets. How charged and energetic these markets are surprises us every time we go. Violeta and I used to shop at the market for our home and for the store, but now to be amoungst these amazing people, it brings us a deeper level of respect and a new appreciation of what these folks really do, and who they are as people. There are so many personalities: visionaries, intellectuals, grassroots organizers, grumps, butchers, bakers and cheese makers. It is a little bubble that pops up every Sunday and let's us breathe a different air. It makes us realize that it is much bigger than simply making gelato, that it is a connection to something deeper, a different way of eating, raising children, doing business, relating to people, making choices and living, in general. It is a bubble that is alive and filled with beautiful music.

Drama in dolceZZa landia

2008-04-06T18:26:00.000-07:00

Well, what can we say. We installed our hardwood floors, which were brought up from Argentina this past Thursday. Lots of cutting and lots of laying. On Saturday morning, as we were talking with our partner Dimas, he told us that the floor had been totally ruined and warped from a flood that took place Friday night. He said as he walked on the floor, water seeped out from under it. The flooding was a result of a blocked drain in one of the apartments above our store. So, it was not our fault but still, Total Nightmare. So, we figured, there are only a couple of approaches we can take - one, is something more of a Buddhists approach and just go with the flow of the chaos which is most certainly guaranteed when opening a new store, a new store in Montgomery County, at that, and second, we could choose a bit more existential approach and say, end it all over a tall, steep rocky cliff, perhaps. Luckily, we chose to take the first approach, a bit more gentle and to guarantee that Bethesda Row is still a go. We don't really know when our opening will be as we are awaiting news about the extent of damage. Cross your fingers for no more tragic news. We will wake up early tomorrow and asses the scene in Bethesda and I will be sure to post some of the photos.
On a much lighter note, we opened the farmer market season this week, setting up a stand in Penn Quarter for Thursday's market and today, Sunday, setting up in Dupont Circle farmer's market. It was sooooo good to be back. There is no place with fresher vibes than the farmer's markets and we are so anxious for the strawberries to begin popping their head's up and ushering in the summer fruits. We are about to get super busy at Dolcezza, so stay tuned for lots of new flavors and loads of drama.

Bethesda Row [take 2]

2008-03-26T19:15:00.000-07:00

Well, let me give you a little update on the progress being made in our latest venture. As of today, we have passed the initial plumbing, electrical and building inspections and immediately began closing in the walls with 2 layers of drywall. Tomorrow, we will get there super early to install the bar along the back wall with a marble table and start putting the marble bar together that runs the length of the store. If all goes as we plan, which it never does, we will be 95% complete with the setup of our store by Saturday. So, after that, we will take next week to connect the walk-in freezer and ask for our final inspections - plumbing, electrical, building, mechanical and fire. We are projecting an opening date of April the 15th and are pretty confident with this date. As the photo shows, the complex itself still needs some work. We are hoping, along with a lot of other folks in the project, that Federal Realty will soon pass their needed inspections so we can open our doors by the middle of April.
This has been a pretty intense week so far. We participated in our first ever Taste of the Nation event on Monday night and then had to be in Bethesda at 7am both Tuesday and Wednesday for inspections. The Taste of the Nation was a wonderful event with some amazing food and we passed our inspections, so even though we are baggy eyed, we are happy and ready to get through to the end.
To add the frenzy of activity, April 3rd we start up in the Penn Quarter FRESHFARM Market and April the 6th in the Dupont Circle FRESHFARM Market. So, if you see us a bit baggy eyed, you will know why, and we will probably accept a cup of coffee, if you offer.

FURTHUR

2008-03-18T17:55:00.000-07:00

Every morning we get up bright & early and head to our shop to begin juicing the citrus, pitting the peaches, melting the chocolate, infusing the herbs and roasting the nuts, all in the day's prep to craft our 20 pans of gelati, which we produce everyday for that day's consumption [minor note - we first sip exquisite shots of freshly pulled toscano espresso, not answering phones or questions until this daily ritual is complete]. Yeah we know, it's a bit obsessive and a ton of work, but everyday our showcase freezer transforms into a work of art, which changes day to day & season to season, depending on how the gelato falls from the batch freezer, which fruits are in season or which flavors we are inspired to craft that day. Over 4 years ago we embarked on this journey, and we never imagined how inspiring gelato could be. We get to know amazing and passionate farmers, brilliantly creative chefs and we get to see our shop fill up with smiles from people showing their approval without saying a word. We make everything with our own hands and there is such an immediacy to the whole process that gives us such a deep satisfaction. All of this pushes us FURTHUR down the elusive search for perfection, knowing that once we get close, it will slowly nudge away.

Coffee Greatness

2008-03-09T20:05:00.000-07:00

This past Friday our little local was touched by a horde of coffee greatness. United Kingdom and World Barista Champion, James Hoffmann stopped by. He is on an East Coast Coffee Tour and was in DC for an event over at the DC Counter Culture Training Center that night. He came by with Anette Moldvaer, a World Cup Tasting Champion, Cindy Chang, a super-sweetie from Counter Culture Coffee, Trish Skeie, ex-Director of Coffee at Zoka Coffee Roasters, Nick Cho, the owner of Murky Coffee, David Fritzler, Coffee and Beverage Operation Director at Tryst and Open City, Greg Scace, the inventor of the Scace device which measures the actual temperature of the brew head on espresso machines, Katie Duris from Murky Coffee, Ryan Jensen from Counter Culture Coffee and Aaron Ultimo from Murky Coffee. Wheww! That's a lot of folks.
It was really nice to hang out and talk with people so involved, dedicated and passionate about coffee. I took James, Anette, Cindy and David on a little tour of our production area and fed them full of gelato. It was great to get flavor feed-back from such folks who live and breathe coffee, as sipping espresso every morning for the last four years has been so vital to the development and opening of my palate to the complex flavors and aromas in coffee. At Dolcezza, we are beginning to send all of our employees to the Counter Culture training center over in Adams Morgan to continue the development of our baristas. Coffee is one of those things that the deeper into it you go, the bigger it gets, or in other words, we never stop learning how to pull a more balanced shot of espresso, or how to froth the perfectly foamed milk. It compliments our pursuit of artisanal gelato so perfectly and continues to evolve each and every day.
So, James and Anette, it was a pleasure to meet you both and I can't stop kicking myself for not asking James to make me a cappuccino, where I could hang over his shoulder trying to soak up the knowledge. Oh well, maybe next time. kick+kick+kick+kick...

Madness [take One]

2008-02-22T22:06:00.001-08:00

Testing...Testing...1-2-3. Is there anyone out there? Well, after 2.5 weeks of trying to nail down a general contractor, master plumber and master electrician, we still have absolutely nada. Hopefully that will change tomorrow at the store, as we are to meet with a general contractor. We are keeping our fingers x'ed. The thing we have been breaking our heads on for the last 10 days is trying to arrange an XRAY team to come out and send some cobalt rays through 14 inches of concrete. This is needed so we don't drill through the conduit and electrocute the driller while knocking out power to the rest of the complex; if this happens we will quickly pack our things and crawl into the nearest & deepest hole. Did you know that when they take the XRAY's, no one can be within a 200 foot of the radius of the site? Word has it, that men go sterile if they were to walk within the ray's radius. I don't know if it's true, but I am not going to find out. It's pretty scary SCI-FI stuff, if you ask me. Anyways, here's what the huge windows and 3 doors look like to our new space. Tis a beauty, huh?! Hopefully we will start knocking around and putting together our bar in the upcoming week. Stay tuned, as the drama is sure to thicken.

Glorious Daze

2008-02-21T18:09:00.000-08:00

This past Monday was one of those days, when the heavens open and the angels sing. Violeta & I walked to the store and drank our sacramental coffee. That Toscano Espresso was oozing copper red, brown, thick & sweet. The morning coffee is one of the days moments I relish the most. So, after our coffee experience, we strolled home through the Georgetown neighborhood, back home to our Dupont apartment. The day was amazing, birds chirping, squirrels chasing, 70 degrees, sunshine and a nice little breeze pushing us along the city streets. As we neared our apartment, the sky grew dark and the rains came down, seemingly out of nowhere. So, it rained for a couple of hours and the temperature dropped by about 10 degrees, at least it felt that way. Then, as the storm peeled away, this glorious day left us with the confirmation, her beautiful colors arching the blue-gray sky.
True inspiration.

Gelato road trip

2008-02-17T07:39:00.001-08:00

Well, Dimas & I took our first gelato road trip this past Monday. We first went to Philadelphia, where we visited Capogiro Gelato Artisans and then headed about 45 minutes north + east and visited the bent spoon in Princeton, New Jersey. We wanted to go and meet our fellow gelato-ologists and check out what they are up to.
First, we went to Capogiro in Philadelphia. Unfortunatley, Stephanie Reitano, the chef/owner was in the middle of that days production when we first passed by, around 9:30am and couldn't come up and talk. So, we will definitely be back and hopefully time it better. We ate 2 gelati - Cioccolato Scuro, Nocciola Piemontese and 2 sorbetti - Cilantro Lime and Red Grape. All 4 flavors were beautifully balanced and had a wonderful creamy texture. Capogiro works with local farms in sourcing their ingredients and does a wonderful job in producing deliciously fresh gelati & sorbetti, with many traditional flavors and some very interesting flavors, combining fruit with herbs and spices.
After our visit to Capogiro, we headed to Princeton, New Jersey and met the super kind folks at the bent spoon. Gabrielle and Matthew were there behind the counter producing ice cream and prepping ingredients, and came out and greeted us with a thick rich hot chocolate, probably the best hot chocolate we have ever had. They took us through the whole flavor rotation in their case. We tried Salted Caramel, Chocolate, Dark Chocolate, Mexican Chocolate, Raspberry, Pistacchio, Cranberry, Mango and a couple of more that I can't recall. All the flavors were great, some subtle, like the Cranberry and others bold, like the Mexican Chocolate. the bent spoon also works with their local farms for their ingredients. This makes such a big difference not only in the flavors that are made, but the type of people that this practice attracts. They served up a couple of croissants filled with gelato and it was amazing! This was our first experience with the whole brioche and gelato combination. We were blown away by the vibes of their little space. They were so warm and friendly and even gave us a to-go bag with some of their pastries that they make right there in the shop.
All & all, we spent about 13 hours on our road trip, eating amazing gelato & ice cream, walking around the two beautiful cities and meeting some super nice folk that do justice to the East Coast gelato scene. Our next road trip will be to NYC to check out a couple of places there, so this was a really nice way to kick off our gelato tour, by checking out Capogiro and the bent spoon. Thanks for the warm reception and the great gelato! You are always welcome to our space in DC.

Bethesda Row

2008-02-08T20:36:00.000-08:00

Well, it has begun. The beginning of no sleep, early mornings, multiple espressos and building our beautiful second store. Our boat with our crate arrived from Argentina about 1 week ago to the Port of Baltimore. We met at the space @ 8am on Tuesday and unloaded everything from a truck into our store. It took 7 people about 6 hours. Today, we un-boxed and un-crated everything for another 4 hours. Everything but the legs of an outdoor bench made the trip safely, which is such a relief. We have had a couple of sleep-ness nights thinking about breakage.
Our store is going to be a really special space. We have brought up chocolate woods floors, a 36 foot marble bar that will wrap most of the store, we have 5 antique frames with mirrors, a beautiful old chandelier and an old porcelain sink. Our ceilings are over 14 feet and we have massive windows that let in bookoos of light. I am going to try and photo journal the progress through the various stages of this project, as we crawl from the dust filled cavern that we have right now, all the way up to our GRAND OPENING THROWDOWN. It is a couple of months away and we IS getting MIGHTY anxious. So, let's see how this photo journaling goes. Journaling the process of los Dolcezzitos slowly going mad and falling down the rabbit hole. Let's see what happens?!

il Laboratorio

2008-02-04T21:01:00.002-08:00

Well, here I sit on Super Tuesday, hoping that it actually will be super, and not another step to the dark side, like we seem to have done for the last 7 plus years. So, just sitting here thinking these thoughts, and reflecting upon our weekend excursion to the center of the universe, Manhattan. What a f!@#$%? cool city! Every time I go there, I fall in love just a little bit more. Her buildings, her streets, her night, her flow and vibes, her air that she so effortlessly carries. I see this huge metropolis as a thing, a huge organism, and I have no idea how something so big functions. There are certain things about Manhattan that remind me of Buenos Aires. I don't quite know what it is, but it has to do with people in the streets at all hours of the day, and that certain feeling of controlled chaos, which either pulls people in or spits them out. We are certainly pulled in, strongly. So, while we were there strolling her lovely streets, we payed a visit to il Laboratorio del Gelato. A super cute and delicious gelateria on the Lower East Side. John Snyder is the man behind the goodness and he does a really good job. His main business is wholesale to tons of NYC restaurants, and he also has pints in Dean & Deluca and Balducci. I ate the dark chocolate and Espresso and Violeta got the Lavender Honey and Nocciola, all 4 flavors were superb. So, the next time you're craving some good gelato in NYC, pay him a visit. & of course, the next time you're craving some good gelato in DC, pay us a visit. Either way, you won't be sorry.

il Laboratorio del Gelato
95 Orchard St.
(between Broome & Delancey Sts)
New York, NY 10002

++1 212 343 9922

Splash of Spring

2008-01-28T15:31:00.001-08:00

This post is for all you folks out there who get a little depressed in the cold winter weather and who grow anxious for the coming spring. What are we to do with no fruit to be found? other than the citrus, pears, apples and ciders. Well, we take the attitude of a bear preparing for winter and fatten up with some of the "warmer" flavors: GEORGIA BUTTER PECAN, VALRHONA CHOCOLATE AMARGO, VIRGINIA PEANUT BUTTER, COUNTER CULTURE TIRAMISU & of course, DULCE DE LECHE. We kinda like the "off-season" because we get to drop down into production and experiment with different recipes and new combinations. Although this "off-season" has been a little bit different, as we are preparing to open our 2nd store. OH MY GOD!!! Yup, our boat from Argentina arrived in the Port of Baltimore a couple of days ago, and now we are just praying that nothing broke on the long nautical journey. We will soon find out as we begin to unload into our empty space on Bethesda Row. I will try to keep you posted with the progress of the space and the possible opening date, which we estimate to be around mid-April. One thing is for sure, We is goin to THROW DOWN ROYAL with a nice big Grand Opening Party. Oh yeaaah. Stay Tuned.

Feliz Año

2008-01-02T17:55:00.000-08:00

Well, we returned from Buenos Aires early this morning. Back from the funk, the heat, the gelato marathon, the family, the friends and the vibrant chaos that is South America. Things move to a different pulse down there, one that is more random, chaotic and alive than what we are used to here. We easily adjusted to eating dinner at midnight, going to sleep in the wee hours of the morning, waking up at noon and taking siestas. We ate gelato everyday and worked with our maestro heladero for 2 entire days. He taught us how to balance the ingredients in our recipes: the sugar, the cream, the milk, the fruit, the nuts, etc. We are going back through the 360 plus recipes that we have spun since opening 3 years ago. This knowledge allows us to fine tune and tweak the ingredients in order to achieve the perfect flavor and texture that defines exquisite gelato. This balance is the technical side of gelato making, while the ingredients and preparation is the artisanal one. It is a necessary step down the path of creating the most delicious gelato possible, a pursuit that never sleeps for us.
Now that we have returned, we will go full tilt into our winter flavors, which includes Sicilian Blood Oranges, Meyer Lemons, Clementines, Georgia Butter Pecan, Tramontana and of course Dulce de Leche in all her fine forms.
Winter or Summer, it doesn't matter much to us, we eat gelato all year round!

Buenos Aires 2008

2007-12-14T20:08:00.000-08:00

Violeta is somewhere 30,000 feet in the air, encapsulated in some long metallic tube with wings. She is on her way back to Buenos Aires for the holidays. I will be flying out to join her on Sunday evening, where we will be for christmas and new years with family and friends. Buenos Aires is such a vibrant city, with so much art, music, design, good food, good wine, and of course, amazing gelato. I will be studying with an old maestro heladero who makes, hands down, the most amazing gelato I have ever eaten. I am going with some specific questions, like how to perfect the art of sambayon gelato - a super rich gelato made with eggs, egg yolks and marsala wine, but mostly to spend a couple of days with him to pick up all that I can. He has been making true old-school gelato for the last 50 years and has a wealth of passion and knowledge.
So, while we are away, Dimas will be running things at the shop and the farmer's markets. We will be spinning a number of delectable flavors for the holidays:
VALRHONA CHOCOLATE HOMEMADE PEPPERMINT PATTY - Our Valrhona dark chocolate gelato has been compared to the likes of smoking a cigar. It is so rich and full of earthy, nutty, tobacco notes, definately an adult chocolate. We make a peppermint patty by boiling sugar, cream, milk, butter and cream of tartar to about 236 degrees to achieve a creamy soft ball sugar dough. We then mix in some organic peppermint oil, form little disks and finally submerge them in tempered dark chocolate. When the dark chocolate gelato spills from the batch freezer, we fold in the peppermint patty. The result is a rich dark chocolate gelato being uplifted and refreshed by the creamy peppermint patties.
QUAKER VALLEY ORCHARDS EGGNOG - Huge free-range eggs from Freddie Schulteis at Quaker Valley Orchards. We exchange pints of our gelato for dozens of her eggs at the Dupont Farmers Market. Their is such joy bartering our gelato for fresh farmer goods. We whisk and heat the eggs, add a bit of cream, nutmeg, cinnamon and brandy, then spin it cold. It is full body, rich, spicy, decadent. There's no way you can go back to eggnog in a cup after eating this.
CLEMENTINE - Sublte, sweet, tart, sophisticated. One of my favorite citrus fruits, along with Sicilian Blood Orange, which is coming soon.
POMEGRANATE - We split them in half one by one, and proceed to beat them on the back until we knock out all the seeds. We then puree and strain to get the precious juice. The result is a smooth, tangy, almost nutty flavor, so refreshing to the palate.
So, we are off, once again. Getting away from the cold for a little bit and warming our bones in the South American sun. Tonight is ripe with anticipation, probably more for Violeta than for me right now. We hope everyone has a beautiful holiday season, full of futbol, families and presidental candidate debates. We will be back in early January to continue working at the art of artisan gelato, a journey that becomes richer and richer every moment.

A page is born

2007-11-25T16:21:00.000-08:00

We have our first ever webpage! Check it out and join our newsletter. We will be sending out updates on our flavors as they change. Enjoy!

http://dolcezzagelato.com/

Summer Mango

2007-11-06T17:18:00.001-08:00

This summer we played with the Champagne Mango, which comes up from Mexico for several months during the summer. They are super creamy, a bit buttery and delicately sweet, and contain much less fiber than the larger mangos, which also come up from Mexico. As we spun mango this summer, we took lots of photos, getting ready for the website; actually our friend, Josh took all the photos, and he got some beautiful shots, with lovely compositions. So, coming soon, you will be seeing many shots of our gelato and coffee on our new web page. Stayed Tuned.

Web page coming soon

2007-10-27T21:26:00.000-07:00

We are really close to launching our first ever web page, which is being designed by some amazing folks out of Portland, Oregon. NeedMoreDesigns to be sure. 15th of November to be exact. Keep posted.

Farmer's Market and Food & Wine

2007-10-12T17:56:00.000-07:00

Wow!? and a little bit of wheeeww!? This has been an intense week. First, we were in this months Food & Wine magazine (Nov2007) with a nice little write-up from Amanda over at Metrocurean, and a beautiful photo from Josh Cogan, a dead-on photographer here in DC. Then, we were in our first ever farmer's market at Penn Quarter this Thursday. There were the likes of Wolfgang Puck and Nora Pouillon browsing the market. Lots of people came out, along with lots of wind. We borrowed bags and buckets of stones to keep the tent from blowing away like a little kite. The market was one of the most amazing experiences we have had since opening our doors 3 years ago. Just to be around these folks, the farmers, the organizers, the chefs and people who give a hoot about where their food comes from (by the way, in this months Harper's magazine, it reads, 'a leading health expert has stated that humans are not fit for human consumption' - just something to think about). We were excited, nervous, honored and in denial that we were actually there, alongside these farmers, from whom we have been buying our produce and dairy from for the last 3 years. It is nothing more than art to be able to interpret these beautiful and fresh ingredients, trying to capture their muse and subtleties. We will be at the Penn Quarter Farmer's Market every Thursday until November 15, which is the date the market closes for the winter. We will be spinnng about 6 to 10 flavors, in pint and half-pint sizes. This Thursday we will be making our first small batch of pumpkin gelato, compliments of the fine folks at Toigo Orchards, who hooked us up with an enormous crate of big, small, twisted and bizarre pumpkins and squashes. We're going to bake them sweet and blend together fresh ginger root, ceylon cinnamon, fresh ground nutmeg, a touch of clove, brown sugar and a bit of Lewe's Dairy cream, just enough to add a little body.
To add to the week, Counter Culture Coffee just installed our new 2 group La Marzocco GB5 espresso machine. To the non-geek, that translates to the creamiest bit of espresso and the finest frothed milk in the immediate area.
So see you, or be square, we will be there.

Querido Mejico

2007-10-07T13:46:00.001-07:00

Well, we have returned back state-side from the beautiful, rich and mysterious country of Mejico. We were able to get away, un-plug and somewhat forget about our crazy city dwelling life we have here in DC. We were waking up everyday drinking cafe con leche, going to the beach, surfing, eating at taco stands, being around our wonderful friends, Delfina and Adam, and of course, searching out the best mexican vanilla beans we could find. The vanilla beans we brought back are from Veracruz, Mejico, and, in my humble opinion, are the best vanilla beans on the planet. We brought back enough for probably a couple of months worth of Mexican Vanilla gelato, which we will start spinning in a couple of weeks. Also, now that we are back, we will fully roll into the fall menu, which means Bartlett Pear, Bosc Pear with Bourbon, Honey Crisp Apple, Apple gelato with a homemade crumble folded into it, Apple Cider with Clove, Virginia Peanut Butter, Georgia Butter Pecan and a huge medley of Pumpkins, Squash & Sweet Potatoes. We will be selling our goods at the Penn Quarter Farmer's Market starting this Thursday from 3pm to 7pm, both in half-pint and pint containers.
We brought back several ideas for new flavors that we will start playing around with soon, like Mole de Almendra, Cafe de Olla, and Chocolate Mexicano. So, now that we are rested and ready to get back to the kitchen, we can't wait to roll into the new season, menu and local fruits and vegetables. It is such a rich experience to follow the seasons with our local farmers and interpret their produce to create true hand-made gelato and sorbetto, the way it used to be made, with care, attention and the best local ingredients that one has around. So, although it may be getting cooler soon, we will not stop spinning and eating our gelato over here at Dolcezza. Hopefully, we will see you around, too.

La Marzocco GB5

2007-09-08T21:53:00.001-07:00

A couple of weeks ago we entered our shop to find water all over the floor. Our espresso machine had broken a seal on one of the group heads. Right now we are using a loner from Ryan Jensen over at Counter Culture Coffee to get us through - thx Ryan! I am 99% sure that we will be buying a new 2 group La Marzocco GB5, I just have to convince the family, which so far, so good. Keep posted for the new machine, a new coffee menu and a new location for the espresso machine. I have wanted to get a really good espresso machine since we started serving coffee, and the GB5 is touted as the best in the market. I can't wait to get it up and going. In the meantime, we will be pulling our shots on Ryan's 1 group Astoria.
Violeta & I went by Big Bear Cafe today. It is located on 1st and R St NW. It is a beautiful bright space with great coffee and vibes. They are pulling CCC's Espresso Forte. The owner, Lana pulled a wonderful deep full-body shot that was a nice earthy cup with a subtle sweet ending. It was nice to compare with Toscano Espresso, which is what we use in our shop, also from CCC. So cool that good coffee is starting to pop up and spread around DC.

So stay tuned folks for our little espresso machine drama. We hope to deliver superb espresso drinks within the next few weeks.

Please don't smoke the gelato

2007-09-01T13:43:00.000-07:00

Nope, it doesn't matter how much you eat, you will explode before feeling any other effects. The infamous hemp seed. Although it belongs to the same genus, Cannabis, it contains only minute amounts of the psychoactive chemicals that are contained in its sister plant, which people usually use to alter their consciousness. So what's the point, you ask? Well, the hemp seed carries a wonderful nutty, buttery flavor that goes really well with banana. First we craft a rich creamy gelato made with fresh bananas, sugar and local, hormone-free milk and cream. We then toast the hemp seeds with butter, brown sugar and a nip of vietnamese cinnamon. As the banana gelato falls from the machine, we fold in the crunchy hemp seed prailine throughout. So, that's what we're doing with it. We figure it's a nice way to welcome the fall and bid our adieus to the summer, with warm toasty hemp seeds. So, come on by, pull up a chair and let us know what you think.

- los dolcezitos

note: hemp seed is legally grown and sold in canada and the european union. although not legally grown in the states, it can be purchased for the making of food, clothes, soaps, etc.

Festival de la Frutilla

2007-06-03T19:32:00.001-07:00

Frutilla, fresa, fragola, strawberry, whatever. We started our summer fruit binge this week by hitting up the fine farmers at Toigo Orchards for their foot stompin strawberries. We started the mess by spinning FRUTILLA CON MENTA (strawberry sorbetto infused with Gardener's Gourmet spearmint) and FRUTILLA GRANIZADA (strawberry gelato, made with Lewe's Dairy cream and dark stracciatella ladled throughout). By the way, all of our gelato now uses Lewe's Dairy cream. I spoke with the producer / farmer during the whole selection process, and assured that their cream comes from hormone-free and anitbiotic-free cows. It is a beautiful cream.
So, from now until the strawberries stop popping up, we will be spinning several combinations of one of our preferred fruits, the local strawberry. I will give it about 5 to 6 weeks, and then we say goodbye, again, for another year. Stay tuned for FRUTILLA CON LAVANDA (strawberry sorbetto with hints of local lavender infused), FRUTILLA MENTA & LAVANDA (strawberry sorbetto with pangs of local mint and lavender), FRUTILLA CON CREMA (strawberry gelato made with Lewe's Dairy cream, unadulterated), FRUTILLA CON TEQUILA (strawberry sorbetto with anejo), FRUTILLA CON MEZCAL (because we can) and a couple of other combinations we are dreaming up every night. Today at the market, I asked Ris Lacoste what flavor she thought would be nice with strawberries, and she responded, 'I always loved toast, butter and strawberry jam'. It was totally unexpected and I have not stopped thinking of it since.
Stay tuned or be sorry.

Pistacchio di Bronte

2007-04-11T18:00:00.000-07:00

Our Pistacchio gelato has always been one of those flavors that I was never fully satisfied with. I went through a million tweaks, fine tunes and experiments, trying different proportions of pistacchios, different roast times, etc. I could never quite arrive at the right flavor or texture. Well, this endless search has finally ended. It is one of those things that happens to you as you go deeper and deeper into something, as we continue to do into the art of gelato making, kinda like the further in you go, the bigger it gets.

Pistacchio di Bronte, known to be the best pistacchio in the world. They are the Smeraldo variety of pistacchio, which are harvested on the rugged slopes of Mt Etna in Bronte, Sicily every two years, as the pistacchio produces fruit one year and rests the next. The flavor is earthy, nutty and intense, and mixing it with our cream, milk and sugar leaves a beautiful creamy texture that goes beyond my possibility of description.

Pistacchio di Bronte, ineffable, luxurious, mature, smoky and smooth. Not to be missed, and might I add, goes beautiful with our Chocolate Amargo gelato.

Here comes the sun

2007-04-01T10:29:00.000-07:00

Today was the opening day of the Dupont Farmer's Market, and Violeta and I went to chat with the farmers, cheesemakers, orchid growers and chefs. We love the farmers market for so many reasons. There are so many amazing products to choose from, so many passionate and cool people to talk to. We hung out with the folks from Toigo Orchards, shooting the breeze about every random topic you can imagine (as always - the folks at Toigo are a little crazy and I think that is why we get along so well), we spoke with a cheesemaker from Blue Ridge Dairy Co. about using their Mascarpone and Ricotta cheese for our gelato, we discussed when the strawberries, blackberries and raspberries are coming with the folks at Sunnyside Farm & Orchard, we chatted with our orchard man from Arbec Orchids and got to see the beautiful little twin girls of RJ Cooper from Vidalia. The vibes are so fresh at the farmers market, so ripe with anticipation for the upcoming season, when the fields and markets are bursting with spring and summer fruit. This all translates directly to our shop and our gelato. It means so much to us to know who our farmers are, that we know they live on their farm and how they personally take care of their fruits. This is not just a job to them, it is a way of life and how beautiful is it to cultivate the land bringing forth such beautiful food. We feel priveleged to know these people and to be able to use their products when creating our gelati. It adds this unseen dimension that you really can't put your finger on, but one that we can feel when we are pitting the peaches, cutting the strawberries or infusing the herbs.
So, here comes the sun...doodoodoodoo...here comes the sun...& i say, it's alright...it's alright

Wintertime

2007-02-25T18:21:00.000-08:00

This is a nice little photo that Violeta took today from the upstairs of our cafe during the snow. I know that snow is not so good for gelato sales, but I still love it, just like when I was a little kid. So, you ask, what did we do on a slow Sunday. Well, we watched the winter wonderland transform and sipped exquisite espresso with our newly acquired spoons from Miss Pixies. Enjoy.

Oh yeah, we will be opening our doors 7 days a week beginning Monday, March 12th. Yaaaaaaaaaaayyy! See you around.

Sunrise

2007-02-21T19:51:00.000-08:00

One of the many perks of getting up before the break of dawn to make gelato.

thank you gelato, thank you sunrise, thank you inspire...

Sweet Home Alabama

2007-02-07T20:25:00.000-08:00

So we have returned home, back state-side. I had forgotten how vibrant, chaotic, alive, chic, delicious, crowded & late night Buenos Aires is. We were running from one side of the city to the other, all day and all night. The trip was full of family, friends, celebrations, asados, helados, parties, siestas and the like. The last night we met an amazing maestro heladero in El Tigre. He has been making helado from scratch for over 40 years and it was by far the best helado we ate anywhere in Argentina, and we practically ate helados everyday. So, now we are back with many stories to tell and full of inspiration to create. I have been playing around with a wonderful Chocolate Amargo gelato with a deep dark rich chocolate flavor from beginning to end. It almost has the texture of a chocolate cake. We also concocted a nice Tiramisu gelato. It is Vermont Butter & Cheese Mascarpone gelato with pieces of savoiardi soaked in espresso and brandy and sprinkled with dark cacao powder throughout. The strong chocolatey and nutty taste of the espresso compliments the creamy mascarpone cheese so well. We are also spinning Toscano Espresso gelato. We start with goopy chocolatey nutty shots of Toscano Espresso and mix it into the cream, milk and sugar. We are trying to push the pedal to the metal on flavors, fresh-ness, locally sourced produce, and locally sourced antibiotic and hormone free dairy. It is so important what we put into our bodies, not only for the flavor but for the quality and care that go into the ingredients. We brought back many ideas for flavor combinations, so stay tuned.

Also, the cortado pictured above sits in a vasito that dates back to the 1930's in Buenos Aires. I picked up a couple of them at the Mercado de las Pulgas. It is an amazing flea market that has so many beautiful and old objects.

So, I leave you with an image of our trip. Friends, Dancing and Music. What else can I say. We miss you Buenos Aires. But we are also glad to be back home. Thanks for the inspire.

Sleepy DC

2006-12-07T19:45:00.000-08:00

Travelling always puts me in the mode of "the observer." I kinda take a step back from the busy-ness of life and just go with the flow. It usually starts to feel that way several days before the journey. So, here on the eve of our trip, DC sleeps and our candles burn. We jump the train tomorrow and head south, only to return here in a new year for the plump red blood oranges and elegant meyer lemons, so, until then, I will go with the flow and enjoy the warm Buenos Aires nights, filled with odors of grilled meat and fiesta. So long DC, we will return soon enough...

Buenos Aires

2006-12-06T19:40:00.000-08:00

This Friday we are off to Buenos Aires for the holidays to be with family and friends. It has been more than a year and a half since we have been back...way too long. Although we are going to be away until the beginning of January, we leave you in the very capable hands of our partner in crime, Dimas. He will be there opening, closing, producing and delivering, so los dolcezzcitos will not be sleeping.

Our flavors for the holidays will be the following:
1. Pistachio
2. Chocolate Peppermint Stick
3. Vanilla
4. Chocolate
5. Chocolate Mexicano
6. Chocolate Amargo
7. Lemon
8. Gingerbread Spice
9. Pumpkin Spice
10. Pomegranate
11. Mascarpone
12. Coffee Stracciatella
13. Banana
14. Mango
15. Cinnamon
16. Georgia Butter Pecan
17. Local Cider Clove
18. Dulce de Leche
19. Dulce de Leche Swirl
20. Coconut with Dulce de Leche

We will be closing for Christmas Day (25) and New Years Day (01).

We wish you all a beautiful holiday time with your family, friends, food, wine, coffee and of course gelato...it is never too cold to eat gelato. See u all in '07.