June 2nd is National Rocky Road Day.

Rocky road ice cream is chocolate ice cream mixed with nuts and marshmallows, the “rocks” in the road. The original nuts, walnuts, were later replaced with toasted almonds.

Over the years, the concept has been ported to fudge, cookies, popcorn and other sweets.

An easy recipe for Rocky Road ice cream is below.
 
 
HISTORY OF ROCKY ROAD ICE CREAM

In 1928, William Dreyer and Joseph Edy founded Edy’s Grand Ice Cream in Oakland, California. Rocky Road ice cream was created the following year.

William Dreyer’s professional relationship with ice cream began in 1906 when, as a galley boy aboard a German passenger ship, he was tasked with making a frozen dessert to celebrate the ship’s arrival in America.

By the 1920s, he had established an ice cream manufacturing facility in Visalia, California. In 1926 he was recruited by National Ice Cream to run a large plant in Oakland. In Oakland he met Joe Edy, a prominent confectioner.

In 1928, Edy and Dreyer teamed up to manufacture premium ice cream under the name Edy’s Grand Ice Cream, focusing on creative flavors. At the time, ice cream was only sold in basic flavors such as chocolate, strawberry and vanilla.

Dreyer was inspired by Edy’s use of marshmallows and nuts in a candy creation. In those days there were no miniature marshmallows. So in March of 1929, Dreyer cut up marshmallows with his wife’s sewing scissors, and added them along with walnuts to a base of chocolate ice cream.

The flavor was named Rocky Road for the texture. You’ll also find references that it was named for the troubled economic times of the Great Depression. However, the flavor was created in March 1929 and the stock market crash that engendered the Depression didn’t happen until October of that year.

 
EASY ROCKY ROAD ICE CREAM RECIPE

If you don’t want to make chocolate ice cream from scratch:

1. LEAVE a quart of store-bought chocolate ice cream on the counter to soften. You want it just soft enough to mix in the “rocks.”

2. STIR in 1 cup of miniature marshmallows and 1/2 cup roughly-chopped almonds or pecans.

3. RETURN the quart to the freezer to harden.
 
 
MORE ROCKY ROAD RECIPES

[2] Rocky Road ice cream with caramel sauce (photo © Queen Of Cream | Atlanta).

[3] The original rocky road ice cream (photo © Edy’s).

We can’t believe we ate the whole thing.
Photo by River Soma | THE NIBBLE.

Now, there’s candy. And we like it.

There are:

 
The candies are sold in single serves and 6-packs.

Learn more at SkinnyCow.com.

Warning: These products can be addictive.

When you think of a refreshing warm-weather drink, do you think of beer, iced tea, lemonade, or ginger ale?

If you mix two of them together in a half-and-half drink, you’ll create a summer refresher: an Arnold Palmer or a Shandy, depending on the recipe. You can purchase them ready-bottled; but like most things, homemade tastes better.
 
 
THE ARNOLD PALMER

Combine equal amounts of homemade iced tea and lemonade in a tall glass. You can vary the proportions if you prefer one flavor over the other.

The drink, also known as a half and half, is named for golf legend Arnold Palmer. It was his soft drink of choice—he mixed it up at home—and is popular enough that Country Time and Sweet Leaf, among other companies, bottle it.

Mix your alcohol of choice into an Arnold Palmer and you get a John Daly. According to Golf Digest, Mr. Daly is not at all happy about this, claiming copyright infringement.

To give you some ideas about how the recipe has expanded, AriZona Beverage Company sells six variations: Lite Iced Tea & Lemonade, Zero Iced Tea & Lemonade, Lite Green Tea & Lemonade, Pomegranate Green Tea & Lemonade, “Southern Style” Sweet Tea & Pink Lemonade, and Peach Sweet Tea and Lemonade.
 
 
THE HISTORY OF THE ARNOLD PALMER

One day during the late 1960s, after a long morning of designing a golf course in the Palm Springs area, the legendary golfer Arnold Palmer was ready for lunch. He asked the waitress for a mixture of half lemonade and half iced tea.

A woman sitting nearby overheard what he ordered and told the waitress, “I’ll have that Arnold Palmer drink.” Thus the Arnold Palmer tea and lemonade combination was born.

Arnold had been drinking it for years; his wife Winne made them for him.

But now, word of the Arnold Palmer tea and lemonade beverage spread throughout America via his army of fans [source].

While the Arnold Palmer contains no liquor, more than a few fans of the drink have given it a hit of spirits (gin, vodka, rum, whiskey, whatever).
 
 
THE SHANDY

Shandy, short for shandygaff, is a beer diluted with a non-alcoholic drink: ginger beer, ginger ale, carbonated lemonade, citrus-flavored soda, or cider, for example. We prefer ginger beer or Mike’s Hard Lemonade (which, at 5.2% ABV, does no diluting!).

The proportions are half-and-half; but as with an Arnold Palmer, they can be adjusted to taste.

Fentimans, a U.K. brand sold in the U.S. (and a NIBBLE Top Pick Of The Week), bottles a lemonade-based Shandy made of a 70%-30% mixture of beer and carbonated lemonade with a 0.5 ABV (1 proof). The lower proportion of beer enables it to be sold as a soft drink.

The origin of the term “shandygaff” is unknown; it first appeared in print in 1853. Shandy is a surname in the U.K.; and in Ireland, the name is a variant of Shaun (John). Gaff is an old term for a fishing hook. Perhaps the drink was first mixed up by a steward named Shandy?

You don’t need a gaff: Mix up your own Arnold Palmer or Shandy. Have an “AP & S” party and let guests create their own variations.

> Here’s how to have a shandy party.

[1] The Arnold Palmer, half iced tea, half lemonade (pnoto © Fahrwasser | Panther Media).

[2] If you really want to, you can add a splash of whiskey or other spirit (photo © Misunderstood Whiskey | Unsplash).

[3] A Shandy is half beer, half carbonated lemonade or ginger beer (photo © Milos Luz | iStock Photo).

Fresh apricots: a seasonal treat. Photo
courtesy Washington State Fruit Commission.

Not enough, based on a poll of THE NIBBLE staff.

Savor the flavor of fresh apricots. Different varieties of are harvested during the summer season.

In the case of imported apricots, even when ripe they will be hard and woody. As Produce Pete says, Australian apricots are fine in Australia, but not here.

A tip on buying apricots:

 
As a general tip, keep stone fruits (apricots, cherries, nectarines, peaches, plums) out of the refrigerator. The jolt from room temperature to cold temperature can turn the flesh mushy.

WAYS TO ENJOY APRICOTS

 
Three apricots have about 51 calories, with large amounts of vitamins A and C.

More than 700 hopefuls entered their beers in the annual Samuel Adams Longshot American Homebrew Contest. The main contest is not open to employees of Samuel Adams’ maker, The Boston Beer Company. Instead, they compete in a separate, in-house competition, with equal prizes.

The prize is the experience of brewing their beer at the Samuel Adams brewery in Boston, alongside the professional brewers. Their beer is then distributed in a Limited Edition—with the winners’ photo on the bottle. And there’s some cash: a $5,000 royalty for their recipe.

Given how many different brews Samuel Adams already makes (more than 40), entrants are encouraged to incorporate unusual ingredients into their recipes.

The winning beers are now available nationally in the 2011 LongShot Category 23* Variety 6-Pack, two bottles of each of the winning recipes, at a suggested retail price of $9.99:

 
*Category 23 is a judging category for beers whose ingredients are so unusual that they don’t fit into the other categories.

THE SCOOP ON THE SUDS

Friar Hop Ale
Richard Roper created a hybrid of two styles: a big hoppy IPA and a fruity Belgian ale. The caramel sweetness of a Belgian ale is enhanced with big, citrussy hop reminiscent of an IPA. The beer has universal appeal; but rather than have a second, we tried a different style.

Honey Bee’s Lavender Wheat Beer
We loved the idea created by Caitlin DeClercq, a member of the Samuel Adams sales team. She brewed a wheat beer with dried lavender petals, honey and vanilla. We’re a flavor-forward fan: While a delicious wheat beer, the lavender, honey and vanilla were too subtle for us. (“Flavor forward” is the opposite of subtle and delicate. It means that the flavors assert themselves to the point where they are easily recognized. It’s a style preference, a positive term not to be confused with “heavy-handed” or “overdone,” which are negative terms.)

And now for our favorite among the winning trio:

Blackened Hops Beer
Blackened Hops Beer made by Rodney Kibzey is one we’d buy again and again. With deep roasted malt character and both citrusy and piney American hops, this dark beer is both profound and refreshing. Its black color hints at roasted malt and coffee flavors. We love hops, but this beer will appeal to the non hop-heads in the crowd. This is Rodney’s second LongShot American Homebrew Contest win. His Weizenbock was included in the 2008 LongShot Variety Pack. Rodney, we’ll gladly stop by any time for a taste of what’s brewing.

Bravo to to the winners and to all of America’s homebrewers.