everything just a girl is shaped by the culture (big C and little c) around me, past and present, so that’s why I’m sharing a bit of the context around the goods. nothing is ever that serious but it’s tasty.

what I’ve been into, making, and craving:

into:

• ‘Witches Brew’ Alani flavor

• ‘october, again’ playlist

• ‘Kelly Clarkson has put us in danger’ as one of the best headlines of the year. the whole debacle prompted a return to my childhood rage classics like Behind These Hazel Eyes

• Halloween (1978)

  • young Jamie Lee Curtis

  • perfect villain work

  • the score

• You Can See Everything. this isn’t saying much but:

  • Nathan Fielder was born for this

  • everyone involved showed tf up to work. it set the bar for documentaries and felt like an entirely new type of media

  • it not only invites questions about Elizabeth and her family but also about identity, love, control, fault, empathy, communication, and the lengths people will go to to protect their idea of safety

  • a lot is left up for interpretation, but some subjects’ true colors are dropped like a looney tunes anvil and left there, asking you to notice the destruction to the ground

  • it examines truth and perception so well that when I walked out of the theater I felt like I was literally born yesterday

  • and I believe truth is truth, but how each of our unique narratives can coexist with the undeniable is what makes being alive a dangerously beautiful challenge

  • not in the film, but the fact that Elizabeth Holmes and Jen Shah were in prison together is foundational to my whimsical worldview

making:

• nostalgic flavors, like an interpretation of ben & jerry’s chunky monkey

• familiar flavors in a different form, like matcha ice cream with pumpkin spice. I love an iced matcha with pumpkin spice syrup in october (you can order these flavors here)

• worked on a banana bread recipe for this month’s pastry menu & I’ll be sharing more about this soon!

• biscuits

• me and sourdough are so back. I’m keeping a sourdough starter alive and getting ready to make loaves and loaves

craving:

• British scones

• a pot roast, or Julia’s boeuf bourguignon

• more light horror/halloween/spooky-ish fall movies. I appreciate the art. I don’t like being traumatized

• Ever After with Drew Barrymore

• it’s no use, Jo

• Hamnet, again

• a good interview/profile/portrait session. I’ve mostly carried my longtime love for nonfiction storytelling in the form of student loans, but I feel a re-obsession brewing. seeking subjects!

• it’s been a long time since I’ve watched Twilight

Subscribe now

let’s get into the ice cream flavors:

apple cider donut: cinnamon ice cream with apple cider donut mix-ins. the idyllic apple picking activity in a pint.

sparkling blackberry swirl: blackberry ice cream with sparkly blackberry swirl. I thought this sounded spooky and moody. slightly edward cullen inspired. slightly time cast a spell on you, etc.

pumpkin spice matcha: matcha ice cream with pumpkin spice swirl. yeah!

not chunky monkey: vanilla ice cream with banana walnut cinnamon swirl and dark chocolate fudge chunks. an ode to my 2004 halloween costume and an ode to jerry & ben’s original, but better. sorry boys.

the assorted pastry box:

slice of coffee cake, 2 slices brown butter banana bread, slice of pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting, 2 almond flour chocolate chip cookies

order here by 10/22

the full menu with more baked options will be back next week :)

sweet treat club members look out for an email from me about logistics & perks this month, but you can order as normal from this same form!

Subscribe now

my hyper-fixation at this age was monkeys, for some reason. I really blame the paul frank shirts. this translated to ben & jerry’s chunky monkey being my favorite store-bought ice cream. I was dazzled, completely obsessed, even smitten, every time someone pulled that packaging out of the freezer and put a few scoops in front of me.

it became a bit in my family that outlived this childhood phase. my grandparents would buy it every time I came to visit through my teen and college years. even through multiple rounds of stubborn anorexia, I’d accept a scoop of chunky monkey. from the beginning, my grandpa always joined me. never made me feel weird about my loyalty to one wacky flavor. genuinely enjoyed it himself. and made sure we ate it together at the kitchen island after dinner. it was special without fanfare. an indulgent ritual. silly but absolutely necessary.

the childhood visits to their house in the california desert were consistent yet rare enough to teach my impressionable subconscious that fun is sacred. I’ve come to believe this as an indisputable fact of life.

my grandpa eventually got sick toward the end of my time in college and he wasn’t able or allowed to enjoy ice cream much. I think he hit ‘f*** it’ on a few of my visits and had some ice cream with me. this ice cream ritual was usually follwed by a show in his tv room that also took fun very seriously—recliners and a tv the size of a wall. what was watched in there was usually never that serious. survivor, murder mysteries. but it was consistent, and even more so when he needed it to be.

I honestly think of him anytime I properly serve myself some ice cream. he knew how to make special—even ridiculous—things feel normal. like it wasn’t a big deal to go to my favorite restaraunt for lunch because he wanted to go there, too. or of course I was going to get inside the giant pineapple at the dole farm on o’ahu for a photo op as an angsty high school graduate.

and when I wasn’t around enough in college, during the years I wish I would have been, his way of saying ‘i love you and miss you’ was sending me a screenshot of the balmy february weather in palm desert on a day he knew it was a high of 10 F in boston, because he had checked my weather that morning.

I’ve let indulgent rituals stay special to me. when I visit my grandma at that house these days, our version of fun is an easy pasta and a few glasses of rosé, making a paella from scratch, or adventurously trying a new restaurant to collect the inevitable new stories. I’m lucky to have people, pillars, in my life who know the power of a good bite of something to remind me that life is kind and it’s not always that serious.

hence the ice cream business, I guess.

anyways, in my expert opinion, this ‘not chunky monkey’ flavor is better than ben & jerry’s and would be perfect with a slice of brown butter banana bread or coffee cake (my grandma’s recipe). it’s a vanilla custard base with a banana-walnut-cinnamon swirl and dark chocolate fudge bits. live a little :)

ordering is open until 9pm 10/11:

https://forms.gle/EcWbPPeFh5WXohXq8

love you all!

october ordering is open and the menus are below.

order here: https://forms.gle/bSKXuQJPFyonHNkH8

here are the menus:

baked:

• 9 in. coffee cake

• brown butter banana bread loaf

• 9 in. pumpkin olive oil cake with lemon zesty cream cheese frosting

ice cream (part 1):

• apple pie (vanilla custard base with apple pie mix-ins)

• pumpkin pie (vanilla custard base with pumpkin pie mix-ins)

• PSL (espresso custard base with pumpkin spice)

• not chunky monkey (inspired by my childhood favorite B&J’s flavor. lightly banana ice cream with fudgy chocolate chunks and a walnut-cinnamon swirl)

• SANDWICHES: almond flour chocolate chip cookie sandwich with vanilla custard ice cream

pastry box:

you get to order this joyful package as a paid subscriber :)

• Slice of coffee cake, 2 slices of banana bread, slice of pumpkin cake, 2 almond flour chocolate chip cookies

order here:

https://forms.gle/bSKXuQJPFyonHNkH8

For this first one I’m covering the summer months—June through September—because they were full and significant and because I meant to start this newsletter like three months ago.

Into:

I watched a lot of movies that were new to me. I also rewatched some.

Some standouts and brief thoughts:

A Clockwork Orange: a bit of the old Ludwig Van. the story is abrasive but the script is juicy.

2001: A Space Odyssey: a trip of a film for 1968. Hal is a diva; toxic and iconic.

You Were Never Really Here: I saw Die My Love last fall and I think it’s clear that Lynne Ramsay knows how to tell a very human story, better than most.

Being John Malkovich: I’m usually not one to enjoy absurdity, but this is perfect. and Cameron Diaz is perfect.

The Odyssey: I like adaptations and I think it’s important that we keep making them. I thought this was accessible, poignant, and helped me feel what I needed to at the time. saw it two days in a row.

Apocalypse Now: have not stopped thinking about this. watched the extended cut and it was a big wtf of a 3-hr experience in an incredibly beautiful way.

Chinatown: another one that stuck with me. subtle gut punch of a story. in love with young Jack Nicholson.

I love television:

When life is decidedly not calm, easy, or kind, Desperate Housewives is a great rewatch. The perfect 2000s bad-good show with far too many episodes, for which we are grateful.

I rewatched The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel several times this summer. This show doesn’t get praised enough. The writing, directing, production design, and Tony Shalhoub are a gift to mankind.

I watched most of the early seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation this summer. It’s well-acted and accidentally goofy, most of the time. It’s calming, always. It’s not something I would have sought out on my own, but I love television (!), and I have been pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoy this show.

Books:

A bad season for me and reading. I read one, beach read type book and enjoyed it. Funny Story by Emily Henry was playful and relatable and a nice break for my eyes from watching a show on my laptop screen before bed.

But: Mary Oliver’s, Devotions, has set me straight many times in the past 4 months. It’s been in my tote bag for an entire season and I take it with me everywhere. “One or Two Things” is a new favorite. I like when a poem absolutely reads me for filth. I like having something anchoring to come back to. It feels a little spooky that a woman, several decades ago, could put words together in such a way to describe her understanding of life that today help me navigate an understanding of my own.

Making:

Ice cream. I made and tested and gifted and sold batches of ice cream every weekend from the end of June on. I think I finally perfected my recipe and technique for the perfect vanilla base. It’s been my favorite with baked incorporations (like a pie or lemon pound cake), or when I substitute an ounce or two of the milk for espresso or matcha.

Currently I’m playing around with different ice cream sandwich recipes and techniques and I hope to share those soon. And I am DEEP into fall flavors.

I took some film photos on my Pentax point-and-shoot during my best friend’s wedding week in August that I still find very endearing and I’m proud of how they captured the warmth of the celebrations.

Craving:

With no context because this is getting long-winded:

• Making more cakes. Single and multiple layers.

• Annie (1982)

• A good Shakespeare play or movie adaptation

• A Broadway show. Manhattan.

• A really long run

• Cooking a dinner with a braised brothy meat over rice and a vegetable

• Perfecting an ice cream sandwich

• A good, complex, shocking, challenging book

• Sungold tomato pasta with fresh basil

• A california burrito and a sunburn and saltwater up my nose

• High school soccer season

here’s an early look at this weekend’s ice cream menu:

ICE CREAM MENU 2:

apple cider donut (apple cider custard base with cinnamon donut-y mix-ins)

tiramisu (like a deconstructed tiramisu but it’s ice cream)

pumpkin pie (vanilla custard base with pumpkin pie mix-ins)

PSL (espresso cus…

Read more

I’m just a girl and this is just ice cream (and baked goods). I run a Salt Lake City based microbakery & ice cream shop! Here you’ll find everything you need to know about my seasonal menus, Sweet Treat Club updates, and the weekly tasting menu newsletter with what I’m loving, making, and craving. Beyond food, I want to share what I’m inspired by and what I’m chasing. None of this is that serious, but I promise it’ll be good.

I am doing two drops per month with a new ice cream menu each time! this means there are two ordering windows per month for both ice cream and baked items.

these are the current menus!

here is where you can order:

all regular orders

paid subscriber (sweet treat club) orders

and HERE is where you can sign up for the sweet treat club or become an email subscriber (menus, updates, so much fun)!

Subscribe now

I wanted to find a better way to host this small & growing community, to facilitate orders, and share more content.

more to come, but I wanted to share how about the paid subscription tier and why it’s 100% worth it if you live in slc or utah county.

when you subscribe, you’ll have access to purchase an assorted pastry box every month (literally will only put these together for you guys) and 2 pints of ice cream per drop at a discounted club price ($15). you can still order anything beyond this off the menu.

and you don’t HAVE to order each drop as a club member. the $7/month subscription goes toward building out the business I’m working on growing (market fees, commissary kitchen fees, and everything else), gets you early menu access always, and more exclusive content.

no stress if this isn’t for you: you can subscribe for free to stay in the loop, access order forms, read what I’m writing, whatever.

here’s what club members can enjoy this month:

SEPTEMBER PASTRY BOX DETAILS:

Read more