Cause down the shore everything's all right...

I've said it before and I'll say it again...there's nothing like the Jersey Shore. It's silly, sweet, fun, unpretentious and one of the best guilty pleasures around. Oh yeah, and the food's pretty good too!

The RRR's and I spent some time down at our beach house last month. One of the cornerstones of our trip was a return visit to the sixth annual New Jersey State Ice Cream Festival in downtown Toms River. RRR and I take full advantage of Mr. RRR's peanut allergy by helping ourselves to his peanut-laden samples. Hey, whatever it takes to make an informed decision.

If you don't remember from the last time I posted about this event, the premise is simple. You pay a few bucks, get a spoon and some tickets, and make your way down the street picking up samples at the various vendor stands. After sampling the creamy treats, you then place two votes: one for best national and one for best local flavor. Of course, there's entertainment and other craft stands to occupy your time while you contemplate your decision.

The contestants this year? Vying for the title of best local flavor were Applegate Farm's Frozen Hot Chocolate (Upper Montclair), Baskin Robbins' Chocolate Orea (Toms River), Friendly's Hunka Chunka Peanut Butter (Toms River), Farley's Homemade Ice Cream's Cinnamon Buns (Jackson), Mrs. Walker's Blueberry Pie (Beachwood), Sweet Kate's Cookie Crunch (Lacey), Springer's Homemade Ice Cream's Oreo (Stone Harbor), Gifford's Ice Cream's Lobster Tracks (Maine), and The Sprinkle Shack's Praline Fudge (Berkeley).

It seems that the ice cream festival is also feeling the effects of the economy with this year's samples being about half the size of the previous year's treats.

It also seems that proper food hygiene has gone at the window for one of the vendors. At Applegate Farms, one of the workers was a class act and had a lit cigarette dangling out of his mouth as he doled at samples to waiting patrons. In my mind, this should have been an immediate disqualification, even more of an issue than their poorly stored samples. My sample was complete liquid, RRR's frozen solid and Mr. RRR somewhere in between. One word sums up Applegate Farms: disgusting!

We were all close in our picks for favorites but we weren't totally in sync with the rest of the crowd. Enough of the hype, let's get to the winners!

People's Choice Local Brand
1 Praline Fudge, Sprinkle Shack
2 Blueberry Pie, Mrs. Walker's
3 Frozen Hot Chocolate, Applegate Farms

People's Choice National Brand
1 Hunka Chunka Peanut Butter, Friendly's
2 Chocolate Oreo, Baskin Robbins
3 Lobster Tracks, Gifford's

Judges Local

1 Praline Fudge, Sprinkle Shack

2 Oreo, Springer's

3 Cinnamon Buns, Farley's

Judges National Brand

1 Lobster Tracks, Gifford's

2 Hunka Chunka Peanut Butter, Friendly's

3 Chocolate Oreo, Baskin Robbins

Next up in the long overdue posts, a trip to NJ wine country! Yes, NJ wine country!

A blow out and a pig out

Goldie treated me to a Yankee game today. It was a bit of a blow out (poor Devil Rays) but more importantly it was an opportunity to enjoy all the culinary delights that Yankee Stadium has to offer.

We began our afternoon with a bag of peanuts courtesy of an earlier trip that Goldie took to Gristede's. By the end of the first inning, I was more than ready to begin my afternoon of gluttony.

I chose chicken fingers and fries with a side of barbecue dipping sauce. The fingers was good with just enough grease to keep the bready coating onto the stringy chicken and not too much that I would be a slippery greasy mess. The fries were quite good; crispy with a nice coating of salt and some pepper perhaps? Goldie was able to grab a few before I inhaled the entire paper basket. Hey for $9.50 there had better not be any leftovers!

While I was merrily dipping away, Goldie was enjoying two Hebrew National hot dogs and by the fifth inning I got one for myself.

Pretty good for a ballpark dog with just enough snap on the outside and just juiciness on the inside. (now if I only had some kraut....)

The pièce de résistance was supposed to be the Carvel ice cream in a helmet cup during the seventh inning. We went with vanilla with rainbow sprinkles and I'm glad I took Goldie up on his offer to share one since by this point I was really making quite the pig of myself.

As a former Carvel employee (senior year of high school) I'm a pretty harsh critic when it comes to ice cream. The vanilla had a bit of a chemical aftertaste and was a bit of a letdown. I probably would have fared (slightly) better if I waited until after the subway ride home and hit up Mister Softee instead.

Don't feel too bad for me though, there are certainly worse ways to spend a beautiful Sunday afternoon!