State of the Freezer Address The First Decade Edition

That's right folks, it's the 10th anniversary of my very first blog post. Ten years! That's nuts.... no, apparently I'm nuts for hanging around this long. I don't think I planned on still being here ten years later... in part because I thought I'd be some famous flavor guru consultant by now. As you can tell, I am not, but we all need to have dreams. That was mine. It's long gone now. Wow, that went downhill fast. I just mean that I've accepted my fate that while I may be the world's longest running ice cream archiver, there won't be any fame or fortune going with it. I wouldn't know how to handle fame anyway, though I guess I did work up the courage to be on an awesome podcast for four and a half years, so that's gotta be something for someone with social anxiety right? Ok, enough of this, on to the positives, but first, a little freezer talk.

This is the boring upstairs freezer. Not super boring mind you, but this houses our regular ice creams and whatever is currently being reviewed on the blog like chocolate churro (bleck) and some new gelato fiasco. The Trio and Blue Bunny mini swirls will be up next probably. This picture is accurate except for the Friendly's ice cream cake ice cream that my daughter brought up from the basement freezer afterwards (yup, it's back for another year)

And now happy stuff: so what have I accomplished in ten years? Well, blogging says I'm approaching ten million page views, that's something right? Ofcourse, I think that factors in web browsers pre-fetching webpages. Google Analytics has the blog pegged at just 5.1 million actual page views. The top review of that time? Possibly my favorite Ben & Jerry's flavor, the mighty Milk & Cookies with 24,000 page views. That's not the coolest part about that though. I've met John the flavor guru who created M&C and he told me that he had read the review. I was honored to say the least. He's pretty great and meeting him and the rest of the Ben & Jerry's crew was definitely one of the high points of this blog in the last ten years.

You might remember that one of my main goals for starting this blog (besides eating more ice cream) was to become a better writer. As you may have noticed, that never happened. You might even argue that I've gotten worse. I meant well, I swear. What has improved are my pictures skills. Just look at my instagram account or my old breakfast sundaes tumblr project and I like to think I can take a decently appetizing photo. Not every shot is a winner mind you because I can get impatient (or nervous), but yeah, I love taking pictures. No urge to be in front of the camera, but you'd probably be surprised about how much time I spend thinking about how wonderous something looks. Uggg, I'm getting tired and losing my ability to make points. I guess I should apologize that a lot of the photos on the blog have been a bit off recently. While cell phone cameras have gotten so much better over the years, they can't completely take the place of  my primary camera whose lens died awhile ago. I did pick up a cheap telephoto lens to verify that the camera still works (and can still be fun from a distance aka outside basically), but it has limited abilities in the world of ice cream pictures. If anyone wants to sponsor a new E-PL9 for the blog, let me know (sorry, couldn't resist, and like I said earlier, everyone needs dreams).

We should probably dive in to the basement freezer where all the good stuff is right? The problem is that it's chock full of stuff and I am feeling lazy (it's now 10pm). Oh, that's another thing to point out, or maybe, something I don't want to point out. Who knows how many countless hours I've spent cataloging the freezer aisle. It's a fun hobby that not a whole lot of people understand (present company excluded ofcourse). I can't believe I've written 1454 reviews. If you did one review a day, it would take you four years to hit that number. Wait, does that make my ten years seem less impressive? hehehehe. Ok, hold on, let me spend a few minutes getting the basement freezer ready. I do need to sleep at some point (I am a decade older than when I started).

Ok, that didn't actually take as long as expected, probably in part because it's more Eggo boxes and frozen corn than I expected. You'll hear about it in the next review, but Blue Bunny likes me again! (those are all free samples you see). I've also got a new banana based ice cream for my son to try as well as the return of Steve's ice cream (Dean Foods rescued them last summer). Actually this picture technically makes me feel bad because I still havent reviewed the mini a la mode cups they sent over to sample awhile ago (my apologies to them).

To recap, I still love ice cream, I love taking pictures, and I am very grateful for all of you for hanging out here at the blog. I know the way people interface with the internet (and each other) is always changing, but I will do my best to keep this giant archive going. Be well and I'll see you later!


P.S. I forgot to add a thanks to all the companies that have sent samples over the last year. Perry's and Gelato Fiasco continue to be good to the blog. I'm happy that Blue Bunny is back to sending stuff. I actually got Haagen-Dazs samples for the first time which was cool. Who else? Cool Haus, Isaly's and Revele all hooked me up with samples. A La Mode sent a ton of stuff after I bought a store damaged box of their bars. I also got a stack of coupons for Solero and Slim Twin (which I might giveaway) as well as a pair of coupons from Graeters. There were a couple other companies offering stuff like Breyers Delights (I politely declined due to my troubles with sugar replacements). I'm not bragging here, just very glad that some companies see the value of keeping this blog in the loop. --- Disclaimer: Nick got a big box of High Road Creamery stuff but I can't guarantee any timely reviews on it.