The Big Muddy Ice Cream Blog

If you have been following this blog for a while, you know about Mallard ice cream in Bellingham and their crazy flavors! Although other ice cream shops have gotten into the crazy flavors game, no other shop I've seen has quite the extensive, creative, and quality menu like Mallard has. Obviously the highlight of my trip was picking up some Mallard ice cream.  I was at the shop with my uncle, cousin, and his girl friend. Me, my cousin, and his girl friend each picked out a flavor for a hand packed pint to take home. When we walked in the store and I saw the grape flavor listed, I was incredibly intrigued. I hadn't ever seen or heard of a grape ice cream before. Of course this started me thinking. Why hadn't I ever seen a grape ice cream before? Why do some fruits get turned into ice cream, but not others? When I pointed out the flavor to the rest of the crew, they did not think the flavor sounded tasty. From the small sample I had in the store, I thought it was delici...

So Mallard's wasn't actually the only place I got frozen desserts while visiting relatives in Bellingham. While walking in the Fairhaven neighborhood, we spotted a very happy woman walking down the street eating an ice cream cone. We obviously stopped her and asked where she had gotten it. She smiled and pointed us toward Sirena Gelato, which she said was just the best. Most of what I saw of Fairhaven was quaint quiet streets and adorable brick buildings. Sirena Gelato was no different and they added to the feel of the neighborhood with their old-timey looking wooden sign hanging outside the shop.  One thing I liked about Sirena, meaning siren or mermaid in Italian, was that on the menu next to each size, they told you how many different flavors you could get in each size. For example, in a small you could get up to two and in a medium up to three. Sometimes I go into a shop and I don't want a certain portion size so much as I want to try a certain number of flavors. But...

My friend Lucy, who is from the Seattle area requested that I review the Mallard Ice Cream Shop while I was visiting family in Bellingham. But this reader request started well before Lucy asked me to stop by. I have been hearing about this ice cream shop for a long, long time. I've been hearing about it from My Aunt Muriel (Ducky), my Uncle Kelly (Drake), and cousin Shea (Duckling? Though at 15 years old and 5 foot 11, he's not so ling-y any more). And, yes, the duck themed nicknames came way before their passion for this duck themed ice cream shop and the two are, in all seriousness, a lovely situation. But seeing as this is a blog mostly about ice cream, and only a little bit about my life (thought you probably hear about my life more than you would like), I won't have time for the explanation of the duck themed nicknames. And I have quite a lot of ice cream to write about in this post. First a little about Mallard's. Located in Belligham, Washington, which by my ob...