Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Monday, September 14, 2009
15 Irresistible Ice Cream Truck Treats
No matter what part of the country you spent your childhood, you likely grew up hearing the same easy-to-recognize sound of the neighborhood ice cream truck. Today that iconic vehicle still blares the familiar summer anthem, and that’s not all—after all these years, you can find the same beloved assortment of creamy desserts inside the blue-and-white truck. From the ever-present Strawberry Shortcake to the cleverly delicious Choco Taco, take a trip down memory lane and revisit 15 goodies that never fail to bring a smile to your face.
Choco Taco
Who wouldn’t love a waffle cone shaped like a taco? Especially when it’s packed with vanilla ice cream containing fudge swirls, then smothered with a milk chocolate coating and peanuts. Created by the Jack and Jill Ice Cream Company in the 1980s, it was later acquired by Breyers and marketed as “America’s Coolest Taco.” This is one slogan we can agree with.
Strawberry Shortcake
Good Humor’s Strawberry Shortcake on a stick is filled with vanilla ice cream and strawberry goodness, complete with a crunchy cake coating. It has been around since 1960, making it one of the longest-lasting and most popular ice cream truck indulgences of all time.
Ice Cream Sandwich
Ice cream sandwiches are so simple, yet so delicious—two chocolate wafers “sandwich” a serving of creamy vanilla ice cream. Many people believe the first one was made in New York City around 1900, but no one knows for sure. Regardless, many brands have caught on, creating their own versions, but never messing with the classic formula.
There’s nothing better than chocolate-chip cookies…except for the Chipwich, of course! Consisting of vanilla ice cream wedged between two soft chocolate-chip cookies and rolled in mini–chocolate chips, this delicacy was invented in 1980 by the former CBS-TV engineer Richard LaMotta.
Screwball
This very unique ice cream creation materialized in the 1970s and consisted of fruit-flavored ice cream packed in a plastic cone-shaped cup with a gumball at the bottom. Kids and adults of all ages still find this concept fascinating, and part of the fun is getting to the bottom of the cone to discover the flavor of the gum.
The basic chocolate éclair pastry was taken to the next level with this ice cream treat. The creamy chocolate center is surrounded by vanilla ice cream, then dipped in chocolate to create a hard shell and, finally, rolled in a cake crunch, making a layered delight that is hard to resist.
Once upon a time, you could find these treats outside of the magical walls of a Disney theme park. With chocolate ears and a vanilla face, there is something here for a person that appreciates both ends of the ice cream spectrum.
Flintstones Push Up
A go-to staple at the ice cream truck, the Flintstones Push Up was originally just filled with swirls of sherbet, but now comes in ice cream–inspired flavors, such as cookies and cream and mint chip. Regardless, the bright colors and yummy flavors still give kids something to “Yabba-dabba-doo” about.
This favorite fruity Popsicle with a surprise of vanilla ice cream in the center is definitely a winning combination. We don’t know which part we love more: the tangy-sweet orange goodness or the luscious cream on the inside, but we’re sure glad we don’t have to choose.
Snow Cone
With hundreds of flavors, it’s no wonder this shaved ice creation has been around since the early 1900s. You can usually find them on street corners and beach boardwalks all summer long in mouthwatering fruit flavors like raspberry, grape, orange and lime.
Fudgsicle
Frozen fudge bars—what more do we need to say? These rich yet refreshing treats have evolved into healthier forms—fat-free, sugar-free and lowfat versions all exist—but we still love the original.
Drumstick
This ice cream sundae in a cone is packed with vanilla ice cream, dipped in chocolate and then topped with peanuts. All we can say is thank goodness for the I.C. Parker Candy Company, which developed this frozen sensation in 1928. Today this treat is manufactured by Nestlé and comes in many varieties, including with chocolate ice cream, without the nuts and in mini-portions.
There’s nothing more patriotic than munching on a Firecracker Popsicle on the Fourth of July. This red, white and blue “rocket” is a scrumptious combination of cherry, white lemon and blue raspberry flavors.
Snickers bars remain a candy-aisle favorite, but when you add some ice cream to the mix it turns into a whole new level of obsession. Creamy caramel amidst fresh peanuts on top of vanilla ice cream, all dipped in chocolate—it can’t be beat.
Klondike Bar
First introduced in the 1920s, this scrumptious treat of chocolate-coated vanilla ice cream is easily spotted due to its iconic silver foil wrapper with the polar bear mascot. Nowadays, there are 11 different flavors of ice cream, and some even have chocolate coatings that are thicker than usual, yet the question remains: “What would YOU do for a Klondike bar?”
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Fantastic Natural Phenomena
The classical natural wonders are huge and hard to miss - vast canyons, giant mountains and the like Many of the most fantastic natural phenomena, however, are also least easy to spot. Some are incredibly rare while others are located in hard-to-reach parts of the planet. From moving rocks to mammatus clouds and red tides to fire rainbows, here are seven of the most spectacular phenomenal wonders of the natural world.
1) Sailing Stones
The mysterious moving stones of the packed-mud desert of Death Valley have been a center of scientific controversy for decades. Rocks weighing up to hundreds of pounds have been known to move up to hundreds of yards at a time. Some scientists have proposed that a combination of strong winds and surface ice account for these movements. However, this theory does not explain evidence of different rocks starting side by side and moving at different rates and in disparate directions. Moreover, the physics calculations do not fully support this theory as wind speeds of hundreds of miles per hour would be needed to move some of the stones.
2) Columnar Basalt
When a thick lava flow cools it contracts vertically but cracks perpendicular to its directional flow with remarkable geometric regularity - in most cases forming a regular grid of remarkable hexagonal extrusions that almost appear to be made by man. One of the most famous such examples is the Giant's Causeway on the coast of Ireland (shown above) though the largest and most widely recognized would be Devil's Tower in Wyoming .. Basalt also forms different but equally fascinating ways when eruptions are exposed to air or water.
3) Blue Holes
Blue holes are giant and sudden drops in underwater elevation that get their name from the dark and foreboding blue tone they exhibit when viewed from above in relationship to surrounding waters. They can be hundreds of feet deep and while divers are able to explore some of them they are largely devoid of oxygen that would support sea life due to poor water circulation - leaving them eerily empty. Some blue holes, however, contain ancient fossil remains that have been discovered, preserved in their depths.
4) Red Tides
Red tides are also known as algal blooms - sudden influxes of massive amounts of colored single-cell algae that can convert entire areas of an ocean or beach into a blood red color. While some of these can be relatively harmless, others can be harbingers of deadly toxins that cause the deaths of fish, birds and marine mammals. In some cases, even humans have been harmed by red tides though no human exposure are known to have been fatal. While they can be fatal, the constituent phytoplankton in ride tides are not harmful in small numbers.
5) Ice Circles
While many see these apparently perfect ice circles as worthy of conspiracy theorizing, scientists generally accept that they are formed by eddies in the water that spin a sizable piece of ice in a circular motion. As a result of this rotation, other pieces of ice and flotsam wear relatively evenly at the edges of the ice until it slowly forms into an essentially ideal circle. Ice circles have been seen with diameters of over 500 feet and can also at times be found in clusters and groups at different sizes as shown above.
6) Mammatus Clouds
True to their ominous appearance, mammatus clouds are often harbingers of a coming storm or other extreme weather system. Typically composed primarily of ice, they can extend for hundreds of miles in each direction and individual formations can remain visibly static for ten to fifteen minutes at a time. While they may appear foreboding they are merely the messengers - appearing around, before or even after severe weather.
7) Fire Rainbows
A circumhorizontal fire rainbow arc occurs at a rare confluence of right time and right place for the sun and certain clouds. Crystals within the clouds refract light into the various visible waves of the spectrum but only if they are arrayed correctly relative to the ground below. Due to the rarity with which all of these events happen in conjunction with one another, there are relatively few remarkable photos of this phenomena.
1) Sailing Stones
The mysterious moving stones of the packed-mud desert of Death Valley have been a center of scientific controversy for decades. Rocks weighing up to hundreds of pounds have been known to move up to hundreds of yards at a time. Some scientists have proposed that a combination of strong winds and surface ice account for these movements. However, this theory does not explain evidence of different rocks starting side by side and moving at different rates and in disparate directions. Moreover, the physics calculations do not fully support this theory as wind speeds of hundreds of miles per hour would be needed to move some of the stones.
2) Columnar Basalt
When a thick lava flow cools it contracts vertically but cracks perpendicular to its directional flow with remarkable geometric regularity - in most cases forming a regular grid of remarkable hexagonal extrusions that almost appear to be made by man. One of the most famous such examples is the Giant's Causeway on the coast of Ireland (shown above) though the largest and most widely recognized would be Devil's Tower in Wyoming .. Basalt also forms different but equally fascinating ways when eruptions are exposed to air or water.
3) Blue Holes
Blue holes are giant and sudden drops in underwater elevation that get their name from the dark and foreboding blue tone they exhibit when viewed from above in relationship to surrounding waters. They can be hundreds of feet deep and while divers are able to explore some of them they are largely devoid of oxygen that would support sea life due to poor water circulation - leaving them eerily empty. Some blue holes, however, contain ancient fossil remains that have been discovered, preserved in their depths.
4) Red Tides
Red tides are also known as algal blooms - sudden influxes of massive amounts of colored single-cell algae that can convert entire areas of an ocean or beach into a blood red color. While some of these can be relatively harmless, others can be harbingers of deadly toxins that cause the deaths of fish, birds and marine mammals. In some cases, even humans have been harmed by red tides though no human exposure are known to have been fatal. While they can be fatal, the constituent phytoplankton in ride tides are not harmful in small numbers.
5) Ice Circles
While many see these apparently perfect ice circles as worthy of conspiracy theorizing, scientists generally accept that they are formed by eddies in the water that spin a sizable piece of ice in a circular motion. As a result of this rotation, other pieces of ice and flotsam wear relatively evenly at the edges of the ice until it slowly forms into an essentially ideal circle. Ice circles have been seen with diameters of over 500 feet and can also at times be found in clusters and groups at different sizes as shown above.
6) Mammatus Clouds
True to their ominous appearance, mammatus clouds are often harbingers of a coming storm or other extreme weather system. Typically composed primarily of ice, they can extend for hundreds of miles in each direction and individual formations can remain visibly static for ten to fifteen minutes at a time. While they may appear foreboding they are merely the messengers - appearing around, before or even after severe weather.
7) Fire Rainbows
A circumhorizontal fire rainbow arc occurs at a rare confluence of right time and right place for the sun and certain clouds. Crystals within the clouds refract light into the various visible waves of the spectrum but only if they are arrayed correctly relative to the ground below. Due to the rarity with which all of these events happen in conjunction with one another, there are relatively few remarkable photos of this phenomena.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
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