Foraged Flavors for Sensational Scoops
Remember how an ice cream cone can make you feel like a kid again? “What can’t easily be described can always be felt—a big feeling to have,” explains Alex Maddalena, about the name, Big Feeling, for his ice cream and sorbet pop-up business in Providence. He also strives, in all of the unusual flavors he churns out, to use the most flavorful, eco-friendly and humanely produced ingredients he can find (cacao from Tanzania; vanilla beans from a family farm in Hawaii), along with local fruits, fresh herbs and seasonal blossoms, to create “big feelings” about his frozen desserts.
For the ice cream, he makes a French custard (milk, cream, sugar, egg yolks); for the sorbets, infused simple syrup with fresh fruit. So if magnolia blossoms or Rosa rugosa (beach rose) or honeysuckle vines are blooming, Alex and friends forage them, steep the blossoms in simple syrup and combine the fragrant result with local berries or unusual citrus fruits (from California). Thus, cherry blossom with raspberry ripple and kumquat stracciatella were born. And “riffing in the kitchen” with chef friend Nikhil Naiker, Alex came up with burrata or mascarpone in the vanilla and a raspberry swirl in the chocolate. When you taste it, you’ll get that Big Feeling!
Follow @bigfeeling_pvd on Instagram for weekly flavors; order online at BigFeeling.co for pickup at Bolt Coffee, 61 Washington St., Providence. Additional flavors dropping weekly at Stock Culinary goods on Hope Street.
