Good morning, it’s Wednesday, we’re halfway through the week already. The end of summer is flying by.
If you have spent any amount of time upstate (and no, I’m not going to weigh in on the “where does that start” debate, IYKYK), then you know about soft ice cream culture. If you have only a very fleeting period of time to enjoy the warm weather, you tend to take your frozen treats very seriously.
I am a big fan of my local, which is the Snow Man in Troy. Sadly for me, I am not alone in this predilection, because every time I decide to take myself out for ice cream, it turns out that dozens of fellow Capital District denizens had the same idea at the same time and there is a line winding around the block.
I like Snow Man because they carry Only 8 Frozen Yogurt, which claims to use only eight ingredients to make a delightful, low calorie facsimile of soft ice cream. I find the real thing a little too…unctuous for my parsimonious taste. My husband, on the other hand, is a die hand soft vanilla fan, which he always gets in a dish with rainbow sprinkles.
I am a sucker for anything chocolate and/or peanut butter adjacent, but really anything in the chocolate family will do. A traditional twist is never a bad fallback, but fruit flavors are a hard no, with the exception of Dole Whip, another lightened-up ice cream alternative which is somehow delightful.
Before we delve any further into this topic, it might be helpful to define soft-serve ice cream. The main differentiator between soft and hard ice cream is that the former contains less butterfat (3% to 6% compared to 10% or more) and more whipped air (remember this is called the “overrun“), and is served at a warmer temperature (~25°F vs. -5°F).
If you’re very discerning, you’ll note that “soft-serve” is NOT technically ice cream and shouldn’t be advertised as such, technically speaking, because it doesn’t meet the FDA requirement of at at least 10% milk fat.
Visually speaking, it can be easy to mistake soft-serve for custard, but the two are, in fact, very different. They both have that distinct swirl coming out of the machine and are served at a slightly higher temperature than hard ice cream, but custard contains pasteurized egg yolks as well as milk and cream and has a lower air content, giving it a heavier, more velvety texture.
There are a number of myths around the soft-serve origin story – including a pretty far-fetched one (from my American sensibility, anyway) that the late British prime minister Margaret Thatcher had a hand in its creation.
Interestingly, as with so many good things, soft-serve has a New York connection – the first automatic ice cream maker was patented by a Buffalo man named Charles Taylor in 1926, and then ANOTHER New York guy, Tom Carvel, as the legend has it, got a flat on his ice cream truck in Hartsdale, Westchester County, on Memorial Day weekend in 1934, so he pulled into the nearest parking lot and rushed to sell the melting product.
It turns out that passersby really loved the softer ice cream, and a new product was born.
Today is National Soft Ice Cream Day, which falls in the middle of Soft-Serve Week (Aug. 17-23). There are deals to be had, including from none other than Carvel, which to this day bills itself as home of “The Original Soft Serve.”
Another foggy start to the day will give way to ample sunshine, with the exception of a few stray afternoon clouds, and temperatures peaking in the mid-80s.
In the headlines…
Canada got a three-day reprieve on damaging new 50 percent American tariffs against billions of goods, with President Trump claiming that a deal was close but Prime Minister Mark Carney saying only that substantial progress had been made.
Trump announced the delay in a social media post last night, about 90 minutes before the midnight deadline. The White House issued a proclamation saying Canada agreed to make trade concessions, and the extra days were needed to finalize those provisions.
“I have paused the 50% Tariffs against Canada, that were scheduled to kick in tomorrow morning for a three day period, based on the fact that Canada and the U.S.A., subject to the finalization of documents, have a DEAL!” Trump said.
The Department of Justice is mobilizing a veritable army of election monitors in swing states across the country for this year’s midterm elections, Harmeet K. Dhillon, head of the department’s Civil Rights Division, revealed in an interview this week.
Full results from yesterday’s primaries in Alaska, Florida, and Wisconsin and a special election for Eric Swalwell’s former House seat in California can be found here.
Million-dollar fundraising advantages and even endorsements from President Trump did little to sway Florida voters Tuesday as they rattled the state’s parties by opposing candidates backed by the establishment.
State Representative Angie Nixon, a progressive firebrand who ran such an underdog campaign that she could not afford a single television ad, won the Democratic Senate nomination in Florida in a shocking upset.
With her defeat of Alex Vindman, a candidate with establishment backing who raised more than 16 times as much campaign money, Nixon, a democratic socialist, continued the left’s winning streak this year in Democratic primaries.
Nixon will face Sen. Ashley Moody in a campaign to fill the last two years of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s former Senate term. Moody was appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis after Rubio stepped down.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, whose congressional district was eliminated this year by Republican state lawmakers, won the Democratic primary for the newly redrawn, historically Black, 20th Congressional District.
A U.S. Navy destroyer with about 300 sailors aboard suffered a major breakdown in the Pacific Ocean last month that left it without power for four days, the Navy confirmed in a statement.
Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul has tentatively agreed to a debate with Republican foe Bruce Blakeman on Spectrum News and NY1, her campaign said.
Elon Musk is one step closer to his vision of bringing X users’ “entire financial lives” onto the social media app formerly known as Twitter, after Hochul’s administration quietly approved the company’s money transmitter license despite opposition from some of her Democratic allies.
Hochul is turning her attention to AI’s impact on workers, launching a series of listening sessions today that will initially focus on how women will experience job disruptions.
Using Hamburg and Lake Erie as the backdrop, GOP gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman blasted Hochul and her green energy policies as driving up costs for consumers and discouraging economic development.
After being mired in controversy for much of the week over her decision not to meet with families whose properties are contaminated with radioactive materials, a Town of Niagara homeowner said she got an unexpected phone call from Hochul.
State lawmakers included a provision in this year’s state budget designed to crack down on handguns criminals are converting to automatic weapons. But gun-rights advocates say it effectively bans the sale of a popular pistol carried by many NYPD officers.
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch and Hochul visited Police Service Area 2 in Brooklyn to meet with officers and community members, hear residents’ concerns, and highlight what the NYPD says are record-low crime levels in public housing this year.
Queens Assemblymember Catalina Cruz revealed during a News 4 interview that she is a rape survivor and called on the governor to “find a solution” to continue funding rape crisis centers.
New York City Council members read out 11 pages of questions over 17 minutes about the city’s pied-à-terre tax rollout at an oversight hearing, but no one from the Mamdani administration showed up to testify.
Dozens of frustrated New York City residents and homeowners attended the hearing. Written testimony was provided by the mayor’s office because of ongoing litigation involving a lawsuit filed by homeowners seeking to delay implementation of the tax.
Kamillah Hanks, a Staten Island Democrat, said the “botched” implementation amounted to a “scarlet letter” for throngs of homeowners who now fear they may have to pay the surcharge despite being full-time New Yorkers.
Charles Diamond, a former special counsel for the mayor’s office, called the administration’s absence “utterly, utterly bizarre,” adding that he had testified before the Council on behalf of the Adams administration while facing litigation on the topic at hand.
More New Yorkers are joining the legal battle against the state’s new pied-à-terre tax — with one claiming the city mailed his notice letter to a neighbor who lives nearly 30 stories below him, court documents show.
Gustavo Gordillo, 38, the co-chair of the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, lives in a $1.5 million Brooklyn brownstone purchased and renovated by his wealthy parents through an LLC.
When Mamdani secured a two-year delay in fully complying with the state’s class size law, the teachers union won a concession: Educators could receive pay bumps of up to $8,500 if their classes exceeded the caps. But those raises haven’t materialized.
New York City has long offered low-income tenants who fall behind on rent a city emergency aid program known as the One-Shot Deal. But the percentage of applicants who received assistance remained flat after Mamdani took office.
Mamdani posted a video on social media on Tuesday, showing him viewing comments on his phone from New Yorkers who are concerned about his not wearing a helmet when he rides a bike. Then, he unboxed one at City Hall and fit it on his head.
A man arrested for attacking multiple people during Shabbat service at Midtown’s Central synagogue is now facing federal hate-crime charges, officials said Tuesday.
New York City’s sanitation department unveiled a sprawling new $230 million facility on one end of Staten Island on Tuesday, which will enable the city to build hundreds of new apartments on the other end of the borough.
The City promised veterans it would develop an online, one-stop shop to connect them with housing, healthcare, education, jobs and legal help. But eight years and $2 million last, city Comptroller Mark Levine’s office says, veterans still can’t reliably log in.
Amazon and more than a dozen of its subcontractors in New York City and the suburbs face union allegations that they flouted a state law that protects employees from mass layoffs or closures.
Penguin Random House has suspended promotion and public sales of a forthcoming book about Mamdani by journalist Ross Barkan following allegations of extensive plagiarism in political columns he wrote as a freelancer for New York Magazine.
NYPD detectives are investigating the mysterious death of a 19-year-old Staten Island man found in his family’s home with suspicious injuries Tuesday, police said.
An MTA bus and an FDNY firetruck collided in the Bronx on Tuesday, injuring 19 people, including five firefighters, according to the fire department.
A family of four, including two children ages 9 and 5, was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement last week in Albany, sending the children and their mother to a Texas detention center and leaving their father detained in Western New York.
Albany Police Chief Brendan Cox told city lawmakers the Aug. 4 explosion at a DGS gas pump was “not criminal” as local, state and federal agencies continue to investigate the cause of the blast that seriously injured two city employees who remain hospitalized.
The attorney for the owners of the Latham’s Taste of Italy in a lawsuit brought against them by the founder of the Facebook group 518 Foodies has asked to be excused from the case, citing an “irretrievable breakdown in the attorney-client relationship.”
Police are investigating an apparent murder-suicide at The Lofts at Harmony Mills apartments Tuesday afternoon, Cohoes Mayor Bill Keeler said.
Saratoga Springs Mayor John Safford is proposing a $24.46 million capital spending plan for 2027, about seven times higher than the amount of spending in this year’s budget.
Local Head Start programs are reviewing proposed federal rule changes that could help hire more staff or run more classrooms. But the new staff could have less education, rules for higher wages would be dropped, and the classrooms might operate three hours a day.
Francesco Galesi, who turned decommissioned New York military properties into a national empire that spanned multiple industries, married a Russian princess and was once among the richest people in America, died Friday at age 95 in Palm Beach, Fla.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
