National Strawberry Ice Cream Day (January 15). National Rocky Road Ice Cream Day (June 2). National Chocolate Ice Cream Day (June 7). National Vanilla Milkshake Day (June 20). National Ice Cream Soda Day (also June 20). National Ice Cream Month (July). National Strawberry Sundae Day (July 7). National Ice Cream Cone Day (also July 7). National Ice Cream Sundae Day (July 16). National Ice Cream Day (3rd Sunday in July). National Vanilla Ice Cream Day (July 23). National Hot Fudge Sundae Day (July 25). National Coffee Milkshake Day (July 26). National Chocolate Milkshake Day (September 12). National Sundae Day (November 11). National Ice Cream Box Day (I have no idea what the hell that is, but it’s
on December 3).
National “days” are absurd. They are the Hallmark holidays of food, more irritating than “Assistant’s Assistant’s Intern’s Day” and even worse than the worst of all, the monster that started this whole mess, Valentine’s Day.
I’ve always intentionally turned a blind eye to these abominations. I’d write them off as marketing tools by lobbyists and PR firms, and in some cases they certainly are, but who the hell would come up with “National Eat Anything You Want Day” (May 11)? How is that a thing?
This year I decided to look at the whole list of idiotic “days” to see if anything inspired me backwards. The only way Big Gay Ice Cream would ever celebrate “National Chocolate Milkshake Day” would be to either (A) quintuple the price of a chocolate shake or (B) have a vanilla milkshake give-away. But what about “National Pigs in a Blanket Day?” Is there something about pigs in a blanket that might inspire some sort of ice cream concoction? Probably.
National Blueberry Popover rang a bell. We Mariners are real sticklers when it comes to both popovers and blueberries- purists, some would say. Others might say jerks. There was no way I would screw with the majestic popover by tossing blueberries into the mix. Popovers should barely have a texture- you can't toss solid things in. Blueberry popovers SUCK.
I pulled out my blueberry ice cream recipe and tried pairing it with (regular, the-way-God-meant-them-to-be) popovers. It’s pretty great, really. Like a gigantic profiterole filled with purple bliss.
The recipes are below.
GET IT!
My blueberry ice cream recipe is over on my personal blog, The Fattening.
I’ve used Mark Bittman’s New York Times popover recipe for a few years. It’s pretty perfect but I’ve discovered a few things:
Make sure the milk and eggs are at room temperature.
The butter that goes into the mix should be melted but not smoldering hot.
The popover tins (with butter in them) need to warm up in the oven before you pour batter in. Remember, though, that you can’t leave them in here for more than a minute or two- three’s really pushing it. Too long and you’ll have tins of burned butter.
I put a pan on the lower rack to catch any butter drip that the baking popover pushes out of the tin.