Greetings, and welcome to this week's edition of "The Scoop" -- Mad Maggie's email newsletter, read and enjoyed by more contestants of "Dancing with the Stars!" than any other newsletter (that I've heard of, anyway.)

It's hard to believe that the summer is coming to an end, but now that we've turned the calendar page to September, there's no denying it. The traffic at the store has definitely shifted -- earlier in the summer, our busiest times are between 7:30 and 9:30pm each night, now we seem to be busy right at dinner time, 5 to 6, then again at 8 until about 8:45, then things just stop!

These last couple of weeks of August have traditionally been very slow ones for us around the store. Over our first three years, traffic at the store slows to a crawl these weeks -- maybe 40% less than the first couple of weeks of August. I'm sure lots of folks are away on vacation, many families are busy getting their kids ready for school or college, and a lot of the school sports practices have started.

Personally, I think that at this time of year, a lot of us are just sick of summer, and ready to get back to a normal schedule!

Fall is my favorite time of year, I love the crisp air, baseball playoffs, and the start of football season. The end of my 90 hour work weeks is in sight, and I'm already planning my fall weekends. I've got a few projects to complete around the house, then plan to take a trip up to visit my cousin in Buffalo, and maybe a trip to visit some of my "Ice Cream" friends around the country.

Still, we've got four or five weeks of ice cream season left, so let's not get too far ahead of things. There's still plenty of ice cream to make yet!

Closing Schedule

Many people have asked us about our closing plans for the season, so here they are:

Our lease runs through the end of September, and in past years we've stopped making ice cream about a week before the end of the month, and let the ice cream run out. Generally, we run out a day or two before the end of the month.

We'll continue making many of our flavors, but will gradually cut our list down from our normal 40 - 45 flavors down to 35 or so, and eventually to 20 in the final two weeks. We'll still have many flavors, but the less popular ones will be gone when our current inventory runs out.

So if you're one who really goes for the Strawberry Cheescake or Black Walnut, get 'em now or you won't be able to get them until next summer.

We'll again try to run some type of final clearance sale, but I'm hoping to do it in a little more organized fashion this year. Our "Buy One, Get One Free" quart sale of the past years is great for our customers, but it's a lot of work on my scoop crew, and we make no money on it, so I'll try harder this year to limit the amount of product we end up giving away at basically our product cost, nevermind the overhead of rent, payroll, etc. This has been a terrible year for us financially, and I just can't take the hit of giving away as much ice cream as we have in the past.

We'll still have some type of end-of-the-season bargain, but maybe I'll limit it to newsletter readers and anyone who bribes me with a hot coffee during that last week...

People's Choice Ice Cream

Not to harp on it, but this weekend is the big "Ice Cream Call In" show, and we need your help!

For those who haven't read my past writings about this: each Memorial Day and Labor Day weekend, Pat Whitley's Restaurant Show, (10am until 1pm on WRKO, 680AM) is dedicated to callers who want to nominate their favorite ice cream stand. The store receiving the most nominations gets an award as "People's Choice Ice Cream Stand", presented at the annual meeting of the New England Ice Cream Restaurant Association in October.

This year, we apparently received enough mentions in the spring show that we're in the running for the award.

So a little plea for some help: If you have something good to say about us, we can use all the help we can get! Please make a note and call up on Sunday morning and mention us. We'll keep our fingers crossed, and listen in, maybe we'll get lucky this year!

The call in phone number: 888-434-6464

Thanks!

(Reader Submitted) Blonde Joke of the Week

Loyal newsletter reader Tracy P., knowing my penchant for blonde jokes, sent along this one:

Two blondes, Becky and SallyAnn, were putting up siding on a house. Becky, who was nailing down the siding, would reach into her nail pouch, pull out a nail and either toss it over her shoulder or nail it in.

Sally Ann, wondering what she was doing, asked, "Why are you throwing all those nails away?" Becky explained, "When I pull a nail out of my pouch, about half of them have the head on the wrong end, so I throw them away."

Sally Ann got completely upset and yelled, "You moron! Those nails aren't defective! They're for the other side of the house!"

A Pint for a Pint

Those of you who are regular readers may remember that earlier this year we tried to run a blood drive at the store with the New England Red Cross. Unfortunately, we had to cancel it, as we just didn't have the facilities they needed in terms of bathrooms, a waiting area, etc, and our landlords weren't eager to help.

We did end up teaming up with St. Theresa's church in North Reading and giving away coupons for a free pint of ice cream to anyone who donated a pint of blood. The event didn't get a lot of attention, as we pulled it together at the last moment, but we did receive over 60 certificates back -- hopefully this next one will be even better.

On Thursday, September 7th, from 2 to 7pm, the Red Cross will be at St. Theresa's church collecting blood donations. Every donor will receive a coupon for a free pint of ice cream. First time donors get an even sweeter deal -- a whole quart!

Our Red Cross contact, Kerry Ellen Enwright tells me that the previous drive had nearly 100% turnout, which is unusual for a summertime drive where they normally have a lot of no shows. She thought that our coupons might have helped convince people that it was well worth showing up for their appointments, and we're extremely pleased to think that we might have helped them to meet their goal.

Please, if you've never donated before, consider giving it a try. It's a relatively painless procedure, and donating does so much to help others in need. Please call 1-800 GIVELIFE (448-3543) to schedule an appointment, and make sure to tell them that you read about it from Mad Maggie's!

In fact, here's a special offer for our newsletter readers: Donate a pint, and we'll double your certificate for a free pint into a free quart! For first timers, we'll turn your quart certificate into a half gallon! Just tell the kids at the window that you're one of our newsletter readers, and that you'd like to double up!

Funny/Sad Story

We got a call this past week from the Andover Country Club, asking us to make a batch of "Grapenuts!" ice cream. Seems that a member there passed away recently, which is the sad part of the story.

The funny part is that apparently one of the deceased's wishes for his memorial service was that Mad Maggie's "Grapenuts!" ice cream be served.

Without trying to make light of a death, I couldn't help wondering as I drove up to the country club to deliver the tub, "Maybe this could be a marketing theme for us -- people are dying for our ice cream."

Never mind, probably a bad idea...

Flavor News

I found more Black Plums, and planned to do another batch of Plum Sorbet, but we had a little mix up. I had a couple of my rookies clean and puree the plums, and was ready to make the sorbet. My right hand helper, Janae wanted to try to do the sugar calculations on the pureed fruit, so I gave her my tools, and set her to work.

Unfortunately, she had a little problem with her "gazintas", and ended up calculating the wrong amount of sugar -- she actually ended up putting in almost three times more than needed! So we weren't able to use that puree. If I can find more plums, I'll try again, but it's getting a little late in the season to find good, sweet fruit, so probably not.

I did find some nice red plums at the local Wild Harvest, and they're organically grown to boot, so I whipped up a quick batch of this Red Plum sorbet. Very sweet and tasty!

Wild Harvest also had something unusual which I had never come across before -- yellow watermelons! I had never heard of these before, although my fellow ice cream makers on my Yahoo group assure me that they're pretty common in other parts of the country. The fruit of these is a bright yellow -- the color of lemon skins -- and is a little bit sweeter than the typical pink watermelon we normally use. I made a sorbet out of these, and it's a very nice taste, come and try it while we've got it!

I also finally did get around to making a batch of red raspberry puree from some fresh-frozen fruit that had been cluttering up my freezer for a couple of months now. While I like to use fresh picked fruit whenever possible, this has been an impossible season for locally grown raspberries, as the heavy spring rain ruined a lot of the crops, so these "IQF" fruits are the next best thing. The results are very good, so for a limited time we'll have Red Raspberry sorbet, and a Raspberry-Strawberry sorbet ready for your tasting. Get 'em while they last, this'll likely be the last batches of berry-based sorbets this year.

Another of last year's fall flavors making a comeback: Guinness! I made a couple of batches of this last season, but never really got the taste strong enough. Regardless, it was probably one of the most requested taste samples at the window, though few actually ended up ordering it.

This year I spoke with a microbrewing expert, and he recommended that I try using a dried malt extract to get the deep, rich flavor that any Guinness drinker would look for. This first batch might be a little strong, as it has quite a bit of Guinness in it, as well as two types of malt extract, but there's definitely no mistaking that it's a beer flavor!

We also had one last batch of black cherries left, and since our Cherry Vanilla Chip sales had been slow, we decided to try something different, and I had Janae try making a batch of "Black Forest". This is a chocolate ice cream with cherry flavoring, black cherries, and chocolate chips -- kind of the chocolate based counterpart to "CVC". This will definitely be the only batch of the year, as we're out of cherries and I'm not planning to spend close to $100 on another case, so come get it while we've got it!

Staff Profile

This week's newletter profiles team member Lauren, who is new to the team this season.

Lauren lives in Andover, and is a friend of oldest son Michael. She was at the store one rainy night waiting for Mike and John to get out of work, and I got to talking with her and found her to be a funny, outgoing person. On that night we decided to close early due to rain, and Lauren made a very cute sign to put in the window for me.

A few weeks later, as I was looking through our pile of applications, I found one that had been elaborately decorated with smiling faces, ice cream cones, and other silly drawings, and it immediately caught my attention. I was surprised to find that this was Lauren's application, and I decided that she was going to be our next hire.

Lauren has done a great job of coming up to speed for us. She's had the misfortune of having to work side by side alone with me for a couple of shifts when we had some last minute cancellations, and she didn't miss a beat (and went home a happy camper at not having to split the tip pool with anyone else!) On one of these nights, we had a slow drizzly night, and I showed Lauren the technique for making roses for decorating cakes. She picked up the technique very quickly, and by the end of the night was churning out some pretty impressive roses!

Lauren is entering her senior year at Andover High, and recently attended a three week art workshop at MassArt. She has aspirations to go into some type of graphic arts career, but hasn't yet decided exactly what. I'm sure she's going to do great at whatever she chooses, as she has a real talent for drawing, and is a quick learner.

I usually like to link to a photo of our featured staff member here, but much to my surprise, when I went to find one, I found that we didn't have one (yet)! So I snapped this shot when Lauren came to the window a couple of nights ago:

If you happen to find Lauren helping you at the window, make sure to say hi to her and tell her you read about her in the newsletter.

Newsletter Coupon

This week's newsletter coupon: mention that you're a newsletter reader when you place your order, and we'll give you a free small serving of any flavor of our sorbets with any other purchase. You can print this out with you if you want, but just telling us that you're a newsletter reader and that you want your free sorbet will do the trick.

OK, that's all I can come up with this week. Enjoy the holiday weekend, don't forget to call the Pat Whitley show, and hope to see you soon at the store!