This is definitely our favorite ice cream charity partnership ever.
Congressman Earl Blumenauer, the former Portland transportation commissioner who now chairs the Congressional Bike Caucus, has teamed up with booming Portland ice cream shop Salt & Straw to translate his personal fruitcake recipe into a seasonal ice cream flavor and donate the profits to the Community Cycling Center’s holiday bike drive.
As you can see in the video above, this started when Blumenauer (who has made holiday fruitcake for friends and acquaintances for years, based on a recipe he found in — this might be my favorite part — the New York Times Magazine) happened to deliver a loaf to Salt & Straw’s owners last holiday season.
One thing led to another.
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“Oh, it’s great,” Community Cycling Center CEO Mychal Tetteh said Wednesday. “You find that there’s some relatively rectangular piece of fruitcake in there, and you’re like, ‘Oh gosh.’ But it’s actually really good because it’s actually preserved fruitcake within this small-batch ice cream. I’ve never had anything like it.”
He said his taste had been affirmed on Tuesday when a four-year-old sampled it at a tasting event and gave her approval.
“You know she’s not gonna lie,” Tetteh said.
The seasonal flavor goes on sale this weekend.
If you, like us, are fans both of Salt & Straw and of the CCC’s work to help everyone enjoy bikes, you can support them directly via Willamette Week’s GiveGuide.
Give at least $10 on Dec. 11, and you’ll even be entered in a drawing to win a Salt & Straw ice cream party (and presumably any flavors you’d like).
Thanks for reading.
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Remember that Earl is the guy who voted against gay marriage and for the DOMA legislation because it would be better to “move on” to “smaller steps” for gay rights. So rather than seek road budgets set to fund bikes at 6% if that city has a 6% bike trip rate….. Instead…. he has move on to smaller fruitcake funding for bikes.
Instead of heaping ire and antipathy upon this flawed human let us join hands in focusing our rage upon the more deserving target:
Fruitcake!
Has there ever been a celebratory culinary confection more deserving of our collective wrath?
/s
I’ve tasted and like good fruitcake but it is rare.
I tell people that good fruitcake is like a good bagpipe player: you’ll encounter hundreds of horrible ones before the experiencing the one that is like heaven shining upon your face.
Pay them well.
I’m unpleasantly surprised, but it was in 1996. And he calls it the worst vote of his political career. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-earl-blumenauer/proudly-changing-my-posit_b_287689.html
Got a preview of the ice cream and it’s GREAT!
When I heard that Salt & Straw puts bone marrow into their product it almost made me want to vomit.
I need more info on this. Source plz.
Google it. It’s a flavor, not necessarily in all of their products…
I kinda expected to get 10 quadrillion results but instead found Bone Marrow & Bourbon Smoked Cherries flavored ice cream.
What I don’t get is that I have NEVER seen Congressman Blumenauer wear the **Oregon** bike pin. He always wears the boring, generic, “Anywhere, USA” bike pin. I even wrote his office about it–and never heard back. Bummer… 🙂 I’m happy that he wears a bike pin, but would it hurt to promote Oregon simultaneously, at least on occasion?