Thanksgiving this year is espected to be a scorcher, with some temperatures in SoCal reaching as high as 97 degrees. So, if you don't feel like roasting alongside your turkey, Salt & Straw is offering a full Thanksgiving meal in ice cream form.
Take Two producers Leo Duran and Lori Galarreta visited the Salt & Straw in Downtown L.A. to have a three-course meal.
First up: Salted Caramel Thanksgiving Turkey
This flavor seems like your standard salted caramel ice cream until you come across a crunchy, caramelized and salty turkey skin.
Leo's take: "Once you bite down into that crystal crispiness, then all of a sudden you'll go, 'Oh I know that flavor, that's totally turkey meat.' It's actually pretty good."
Lori's take: "I like it. Honestly, I'm getting very, very low turkey vibes. It's good."
General consensus: The one ice cream flavor that was agreed on. It was tasty and weird in a good way.
Second course: Buttered Mashed Potatoes & Gravy
Definitely the most savory of the flavors. It's very dense and made with real chicken broth and potatoes. The website describes this as tasting "sweet and salty with hints of chocolate, coffee and yes, baked mashed potato."
Leo's take: "It's not too sweet. It's just sweet enough that makes it ice cream, but it still has enough of that mashed potato flavor where you're like, 'Oh yeah, that's totally mashed potatoes.'"
Lori's take: "It goes counter to everything I love about mashed potatoes because I love nice fluffy warm mashed potatoes, but this is that mashed potato taste but...cold."
General Consensus: Split. Leo was feeling this flavor and how similar it was to the actual product it was trying to mimic. Lori put the spoon down pretty quickly.
Third Course: Spiced Goat Cheese & Pumpkin Pie
Pumpkin pie is a Thanksgiving staple. When making this flavor, Salt & Straw focused on the pie's custardy-creaminess by using the spiced goat cheese ice cream as a base and tossing in mashed pumpkin and spices.
Leo's take: "It kind of looks like a pumpkin pie covered in whipped cream. I think goat cheese and pumpkin pie...those flavors kind of match."
Lori's take: "There's just some really strong notes of goat cheese in that. I'm not a huge pumpkin pie fan, so I'm gonna move on to the sweet potato."
Consensus: Split. Leo was digging the flavor mashup of pumpkin pie and goat cheese, while Lori moved on to the sweet potato casserole with maple pecan ice cream.
BONUS: Sweet Potato Casserole with Maple Pecans
This flavor contains roasted sweet potatoes, maple-sugared pecans and marshmallow. It's REALLY sweet and even has hints of spice.
Leo's take: "We are on the opposite end of the spectrum. I never liked sweet potato casserole, so to this, I'm like 'meh, it's okay.'"
Lori's take: "It's just sugar on sugar, I love it. It's perfect because you can have the pumpkin pie and I will take the sweet potato casserole."
Consensus: Split once again. But it works out. Leo liked the goat cheese and pumpkin pie. Lori liked the sweet potato casserole and maple pecans. Everyone's happy, and no one has to share.
Here are some other options to stay cool
If a full course ice cream meal doesn't sound like your thing, fear not. There are many other options in Southern California that are feeling the Thanksgiving spirit.
- Jeni's ice cream in Larchmont has sweet potato with torched marshmallows as well as pumpkin five spice.
- Sweet Rose Creamery has apple pie.
- Van Leeuwen has a vegan pumpkin spice.
- McConnell's has cardamom and gingersnap as well as whiskey and pecan praline.
- Carmela has a whole assortment of flavors from cranberry orange thyme sorbet, not too mention pumpkin, apple pie and cardamom and carrot orange ginger sorbet and brown butter sage.