music
sunlight moonlight
Ryan Haver's Dom Dorman, I'm so excited for today's program
because I fucking love ice cream
it's gonna be fucking sick
we're talking about ice cream today
we're talking with Miss Mona Makes Ice Cream
Mona Lipson, a very very good friend, dear friend and neighbor of ours
here in the northeast
I was on Mona's website
and I mean the flavors
I have to come to where you are and try this ice cream
it's amazing
it's like as healthy as ice cream can be
I don't know if healthy is the word but it's very natural
it's very locally sourced
you know everything
if you want to know what's in your food
I mean that's great
it's really all you need to know
I saw one that was the December flavor
and it was like
what are those Italian cookies
like the red and yellow and green
the rainbow cookies
Napoleon
ice cream was that
it's really exciting
we're gonna talk to Mona about Miss Mona Makes Ice Cream
here on the Sunlight Moonlight podcast where we speak
with folks who are being creative
for their work and working people who are being creative
elsewhere
Ryan Havers
it was good
nothing much to report
I had a session of TMS today
too much silliness
it's called transcranial magnetic
something
it's like a magnet
and it stimulates your brain
and it's supposed to help with depression
and there's over 80% of the people that do it
they have awesome improvements
it's not
it feels like a little twitch
it's a little bit like a little bit of a retinue
it's a little bit of a retinue
I had a electro stimulation
and I had knee surgery and I was rehabbing it
and that felt like that
I'm very excited about the holiday season.
We've got a lot of delicious food to eat.
And now.
You look great.
Thanks.
Yeah.
Thanks.
You look good too.
Thank you.
I like that shirt.
You're kind of, it's like,
almost like you have a green screen.
You're blending into your own background.
Yeah.
I should get a green,
I have a green screen,
but it's not big enough.
But I would like to.
Maybe just behind your head
and then your head would disappear.
Yeah, yeah.
My head could be floating.
I'll put green.
Yeah.
I'll paint green on my neck.
It wouldn't be the first time.
Well, I think we had some technical challenges
preparing for the show today,
which were of course,
had a very easy solution
as technical challenges often do.
I think, Ryan, what do you think?
Do you want to get into it?
I think we just get into it.
Because I'm really excited to talk
with Mona about her experience and her story.
All right, what do you think?
Yeah, I think so.
And I think it's,
I want to point out also,
it's not just what I gather
from what I've read about Mona.
It's not just the ice cream,
but she's been able to merge her love of making ice cream
with social justice
and activism,
her love of activism.
So yeah, let's get into it.
I'm excited.
Yeah, I think it's a great fit too,
because yes, we've,
with Ryan and I both being musicians,
of course we've focused,
you sort of talk about what you know first, right?
And so with our program,
we've talked a little bit a lot actually about music,
but I think that in speaking about creativity,
food for me is a huge love.
I'm sort of an amateur cook here at home.
And obviously cooking and the culinary arts
require not only skill,
but an incredible amount of creativity and talent.
And so I think for this program,
the Sunlight Moonlight podcast,
I think it's important for us to branch out
and speak to creative people of all disciplines,
not just of the musical ilk,
but of the music as it were.
So without further ado,
I think we should bring Mona in.
Hello, Mona.
Hello, everyone.
It's so great to have you here on the program.
Mona Lipson from Miss Mona Makes Ice Cream.
Mona, do you want to maybe do a quick intro
to talk about your jam?
Well, I don't make jam, nor do I jam,
but I do put jam in my ice cream.
It's lovely to be here.
Thank you so, so much.
Riveting radio.
Do we still call it radio?
Sure, sure, broadcasting, we can call it broadcasting.
Yes, well, it's a pleasure to be here
representing the culinary arts.
I actually always like to say,
when people ask me if I like cooking or baking,
I always say I do, but I like the arts and craft element to it.
So I always try to actually pick recipes or projects
that have more of that creative element
rather than just dumping all the ingredients,
throwing it in the oven, and then seeing what comes out.
I like the tinkering and the craftiness of it.
So you're spot on.
But ice cream, so I've always had,
obviously like many people, quite a love of ice cream,
bring so much joy to my life.
And back in 2017, I was gifted a ice cream bowl
that attaches to your KitchenAid mixer.
And I think, unlike most people that probably get excited
after the holidays, they use all their new gifts once or twice
and then they sort of go back into a cabinet
and never to be seen again.
The ice cream bowl never went into a cabinet.
It was pretty much in use full time until 2020.
And when 2020 happened and we all went into lockdown,
I knew that I was going to need to make ice cream
for therapeutic reasons.
So it also has that element.
So the arts and crafts and the crafty
and the creative element, but also the therapeutic
and mental health benefits of ice cream
and making the ice cream.
But my freezer was full.
It couldn't make any more ice cream
without actually emptying out some of the ice cream.
And with us being in lockdown,
I wasn't quite sure how to do that.
Normally I would bring it to work
or people would come over.
So I decided that first weekend of lockdown,
I was going to pack my car with ice cream.
There was no traffic in the Brooklyn area
where I was living at the time.
And I dropped off ice cream to friends and family, no contact.
And I snapped a picture and I put it on Instagram.
And the next thing I knew,
random people on Instagram were asking me for ice cream.
And so this became a new tradition
every weekend of lockdown,
picking a few random people, some friends,
some family neighbors and dropping off ice cream.
And one thing led to another.
And I started meeting other people
who were doing similar things.
And so I would come home empty of ice cream,
but full of halls of stuff that people were giving me.
So cookies and brownies and plants and cocktails.
And I didn't know what to do with all these things.
So then I just said, well, I can put these brownies
and these cookies in the ice cream.
And so then they became more coordinated
and coordinated and elaborate ice cream swaps
where I would show up with ice cream
and then we would have planned out a certain swap.
And this idea hit me where I could actually use ice cream
as a vehicle to promote these other small businesses
or these other local makers and bakers
who are doing similar things.
And so this idea began forming of using ice cream
as this community driver.
And having spent at the time around 18 years working
in the nonprofit and social impact space,
I knew if I was going to start any kind of business,
it would always need to have that community element
like you were saying, Ryan.
So yeah, so that's how Miss Mona Makes Ice Cream
kind of came to be back in 2020.
It's been a bit of a side hustle ever since.
And yeah, I still continue to feature.
You can see here in my pints, it says,
you'll find a featured local maker, baker,
and producer packed into every pint.
So yeah, that is the concept of Miss Mona Makes Ice Cream.
That's, I mean, that's completely fantastic.
And it's really, I want to get into so much
of what you brought up.
First of all, the mental health aspect,
the creative release, the arts and crafts element
of what you're doing is so important to me.
It's one of the main reasons that I cook
is because there's something so fulfilling
and so calming about it to me to sort of like,
you know, have an idea, line up your ingredients, execute,
and whether it comes out fantastic or not
is sort of secondary to the actual act of just doing it.
Right?
I think it also takes you,
oh, it also, I think just takes you away from a screen.
So the other night, I got a little bit wrapped up
in making cookies because I just realized,
oh, I'm not looking at my phone,
I'm not looking at a computer,
I'm not looking at a television,
I'm not a musician, so I'm not sitting there, you know,
playing music, even when I read books these days,
most of the time it's an audio book and I'm multitasking
and I'm, you know, folding laundry, I'm in the car.
And so I find that one of the only times in my day
where I'm not staring at a screen is when I'm in the kitchen.
So yeah, definitely helps with that,
just screen break and mental health breaker.
I cook almost every day for my family.
And the other thing I really like about it is it's,
it's also a bit of service, you know?
It's not, it's like you're making something
for other people as well, which is kind of a cool thing.
I'm sure you probably get that because you know,
you're going out, you're selling it and yeah, anyway.
What is your, let's go back a little bit too,
because you're, the causes that you're sort of championing,
how is it that you can bring awareness or effect change
in those areas through the sort of the making
and the distribution of ice cream?
You know, well, first and foremost,
I want to support local businesses.
So it's bringing that extra awareness to them
through the flavor.
Now, there was a short time where I was running a subscription,
which is a great model for ice cream,
especially in the winter time when people tend to back off
of ice cream, but if you rope them in with a subscription,
they're eating it.
So when I was running the subscription,
in addition to the ice cream, members were getting a discount
for the community members featured.
So I was trying to help to, you know, incentivize purchases.
And then I was also making little videos
so that the individual creative producers featured
in each pint were getting a few minutes to talk
about their product and how they started.
And just that individualized aspect of getting to know
the people who make your food,
I think makes a really big difference.
You know, we're continuously seeing more people paying attention
to, you know, where their food and their products
and their services are coming from.
You know, do they have a social impact value to them?
And, you know, we see more and more in surveys and polls
that people want their products and their services
to have some kind of purpose to them.
You know, whether or not they'll spend more money on them,
I think that's still up in the air.
I think many people would like to and say they do.
Things have gotten very expensive.
But I like to think that from a competitive standpoint,
the social impact and the purpose element
is a major differentiator.
So if you have two ice cream products of the same maybe value,
if one of them has a social purpose and the other one doesn't,
I think more people are going to lean towards the one
with a social purpose.
So, you know, I'm hoping that I'm also making an impact
just in our consumerism alone.
And we're continuing to demand that the products
and the services that we consume
just are benefiting society rather than hurting them.
So that's just one element of how I'm using ice cream
as a point of activism.
Back in 2020 and 2021, I also helped
co-found a movement called Ice Cream for Change,
where we rallied hundreds of ice cream shops and operators
to donate a percentage of proceeds,
a percentage of sales on National Ice Cream Day,
which is in July, to donate them to various social justice
organizations and organizations that the individual ice
cream shop felt strongly about.
And so collectively, we raised about $100,000
back in 2020 and 2021, which was really exciting.
I'd love to revitalize it, but everyone's been so busy.
I think that was one of the highlights
or silver linings of COVID was just we had time
that we don't often have.
And so being able to use that time to make an impact
was really valuable.
So yeah, Ice Cream for Change was an exciting moment
during a very dark time.
And I got to start that with a woman named Maya Warren, who
is an actual ice cream scientist.
She has a PhD in food science, but she specializes in ice cream
and also happens to be the 25th season
winner of, what's the show?
Where they travel.
The Amazing Race.
The Amazing Race, that's it.
You can tell I'm an avid viewer of that show.
But yes.
So Maya Warren and I are the co-founders of Ice Cream
for Change.
And she continues to inspire me.
And there's also just a great resource
when I have questions about how I make my ice cream.
That's like, that's fascinating.
First of all, the fact that there's an ice cream
scientist role in the world gives me hope.
Right?
Why didn't we do that?
That's amazing.
It almost gives us a lie.
Yeah.
I almost feel like that's like, if I were to ask my kids what
they want to be, I want to be an ice cream scientist.
I'm not to belittle it or anything,
but it almost sounds made up.
Right.
That's awesome.
It's like I want to be like a marshmallow astronaut.
Yeah.
I've seen her dissertation, too.
It's like this thick.
It's all about the melting points of ice cream.
It's very fascinating.
She's like a chemist.
But yeah, so those are some of the ways in which I use ice
cream to try to make the world a slightly better place,
while also just filling our bellies
with delicious, yummy treats.
It really, I mean, it's a very, it's a very,
you're covering a lot of ground with that approach.
It brings me, we're here talking to Mona Lipson.
Miss Mona makes ice cream on the Sunlight Moonlight
podcast. I'm Tom Dorman.
I'm here with Ryan Havers.
It makes me think back, Mona, I feel like Ben and Jerry's
were probably one of the first food companies that
comes to mind that I could think that would do things
purposefully in a sense of trying to either raise money
for charity or raise awareness around certain issues.
And I feel like that, at least in my life,
that's what I remember.
Because I don't remember food being a vehicle for educating
people or, you know, do you understand what I'm saying?
And I feel like that tradition is sort of like,
I think it's pretty cool that it's still ice cream.
You know?
Yeah, so Ben and Jerry's and Patagonia are like the gold
standard, the originators of how you can take a product
and a brand and actually build a purpose around it
and integrate it into the business model.
And it's not like an afterthought.
It's actually part of their core DNA.
And so I continuously am looking at Patagonia
and looking at Ben and Jerry.
There's a few others that come to mind as well.
Eileen Fisher is another great brand.
REI is another great brand.
And yeah, they've really incorporated social justice
and activism and impact and purpose
into who they are, into core elements of who they are.
And that's exactly what I want to try to be and do, for sure.
I distinctly remember Briars being a huge activist.
So let's do that.
I don't remember that.
I'm going to challenge you.
I'm going to challenge that.
I do remember Briars was one of the first ice creams
where I actually noticed specks of vanilla in them.
And I don't know if it was real vanilla,
but we're not going to bash Briars.
But I had a funny story this past summer.
I was at a local food festival and a little girl
purchased one of my vanilla's and she said to her mom,
she's like, there's something in my vanilla.
And I looked at it and I was like, oh, no, that's the vanilla.
She had never had vanilla ice cream with actual vanilla
beans in it.
So yes.
Vanilla is expensive.
I mean, everything that goes into ice cream is very expensive.
Unfortunately.
I bought, I forget what I made, but I bought Madagascar,
vanilla, and it was like 20 bucks for like two or three
stocks.
And I was like, oh my goodness.
But you know, Ina Garten famously has her own vanilla.
And it's basically a gigantic jar of vodka.
And she puts her own vanilla beans in it.
And she's had the same jar, I think, for over 30 years.
So she's making her own extract.
A good trick for those of you listening
who want to either make ice cream or things with vanilla,
you can buy vanilla paste, which is different than the vanilla
extract.
So there's little to no actual alcohol in it.
But it's a little bit less expensive and less time consuming
than scraping the seeds off.
So that's usually my go-to is a really good vanilla paste.
Wow.
See, that's really helpful.
If I learn nothing else today, vanilla paste.
And Breyers, growing up, we were a Breyers family.
Breyers vanilla and strawberry.
And I do remember the specs of vanilla in there.
It's a very, the ingredients for Breyers are very basic.
It's sugar and vanilla.
It's a good ice cream.
Yeah.
But I don't remember them Ryan being social justice fighters.
They have a 5K every month.
The Breyers 5K.
The well-known Breyers 5K.
Well, this is fantastic.
Mona, you and I have spoken previously off air
about the size and mission of your business.
I'm a very pushy capitalist.
And I think you've got such a great thing going on.
Can you talk a little bit about your position
as far as the size and scale of your business
and the sort of your goals and approach
of what you want to accomplish?
Yeah.
Unfortunately, I picked a product that, first of all,
is not shelf stable, which makes it very difficult,
both to transport and for people to buy.
They really have to be going pretty much straight home
to their freezers.
Or they have to consume it immediately.
It's also very seasonal.
And for all of you out there that are going to say,
I eat ice cream in the winter, sales don't show that.
So it is definitely a tough product.
And I think it's a reason why we don't see as many ice cream
shops as we do coffee shops.
I know here in the community where I live,
people have been asking me to open up an ice cream shop.
And I'm like, there's kind of a reason why there isn't one.
It's very difficult.
And you probably want to partner.
So from a capitalism standpoint,
you probably want to partner with a candy shop
or some other products as well, just
given the seasonality of ice cream.
The ingredients are very expensive.
And then I make it worse for myself
because I am sourcing from local small businesses.
So that's also going to be a premium for me.
And I'm not just, I'm not buying, first of all,
things in huge bulk quantity.
And I'm not buying from large, well-known consumer food.
I'm not buying from Cisco foods.
So it is a premium product.
And I hope that people that purchase my ice creamer
want to support those kinds of businesses
and those kinds of products.
But it doesn't necessarily make for the best business case,
unfortunately.
If somebody out there wants to help me figure it out,
I'm very open to ideas and suggestions.
So the combination of the seasonality, the difficulty
transporting, and sourcing from local small businesses
definitely make it more challenging.
As of now, my goals and hopes for the future,
I recently left the city.
I left Brooklyn.
And I moved my business up to the Pound Ridge, Katona,
Mount Kisco area.
And it's been a joy.
It's been just wonderful getting to know the local community
out here.
It's been much easier getting involved in local events.
And so that's what I'm really hoping to do,
is participate in more local events,
do some potentially, whether it's private events or community
ones, I've done some birthday parties.
I think that's really what I'm looking to do.
We're going to take a little bit of a break over the winter
to do some testing, try some new flavors,
maybe build out some fun ice cream merch,
and diversify my product line a little bit.
But being up here in a smaller New York community
has been a really welcome change to the business.
And I'm embracing it.
And so that's what I see the future,
what the future has in store for Miss Mona Makes Ice Cream.
And I have a very cute little ice cream cart that
has a lambrella with fringe.
And so that's what I show up in when I do events
and local opportunities.
It is very cool.
And we're so happy to have you up here.
We were, you know, Mona and I have known each other
for a while now.
And we are sort of towny neighbors
and frequent the same places.
And Mona has her workshop kitchen and storage facility
here in the town where I live.
And so it is a very sort of familial, local feel
to what you're doing.
And I think it's just great.
How so this is knowing that you called it yourself a side hustle.
We talked about scale and the seasonality
and the local sort of nature of it.
How do you manage having a full-time job that is not ice
cream based, is not as delicious as your sort of side
hustle?
How do you manage time-wise and your focus and your energies?
How do you manage that with a full-time job
that is not ice cream based?
So if I'm being totally honest, usually my answer
is I don't have kids.
And so ice cream is a child.
That'll do it.
I probably spend the same amount of money on this business
as most people spend on daycare and childcare also.
I also have a nonprofit organization
that I started.
It'll be 20 years this coming year in Guatemala
where my mom is from.
And so between the ice cream and the Guatemala organization,
in addition to my full-time job, yeah,
it's challenging.
A lot of nights and weekends for sure.
It helps that our upcoming trip to Guatemala
for this nonprofit is in April.
So during the slow ice cream season,
I can focus on the nonprofit.
And then that'll be winding down April, May.
And I'll pick back up the ice cream on nights and weekends.
But there's a lot of nights where I'm in the kitchen
and I'm thinking, why am I doing this?
I could be out with friends.
I could be sleeping.
So it's a lot of nights and weekends.
I have a great collaboration with the Katona Reading Room
where they've allowed me to set up my ice cream machine.
And so after 3 PM when they're no longer using the kitchen,
I can be in there.
And so you might find, you might see the lights on
at the Katona Reading Room kitchen at 9, 10, 11 o'clock
at night when I'm there churning ice cream.
You know, it's not that hard when you have kids.
You just have to learn to neglect them.
I was going to say, Ryan, look at how much fun
we could be having if we didn't have children.
Oh, you know, I love my kids.
They're fun.
I have fun with my kids.
But making ice cream is fun too.
I mean, I guess we could make ice cream with children,
but that's a whole other.
I mean, I'm just a big kid, which is part of the problem.
So yeah, I never grew up Peter Pan's syndrome.
So what kind of sparks an idea for a new batch of ice cream?
Like, where does that come from?
Is it like, what's your sort of inspiration for that?
So it's definitely the community members that I partner with.
And so for example, there are these incredible scones
at the kitchen table over here in Poundridge.
And the woman that makes them runs a local catering business,
Elvis events.
And I've been tinkering with her scones
for the last few months, trying to figure out
a new flavor with them.
And then working with her on some of her other products
that she makes and being able to come up
with those flavors together.
So a lot of the and most of the inspiration
comes from just the community members
that I want to work with or I try one of their products.
And like, this has to go into a flavor of ice cream.
Yeah.
And if you had to pick.
I have a few questions.
But like, if you had to pick, do you
have a favorite Miss Mona flavor?
I was waiting for that question.
It's like asking, like, who's your favorite child?
Ryan.
Well, we.
You have a favorite child.
Yeah.
You know, the other one.
No.
So oddly enough, I tend to be, you know,
I have a sweet tooth and I love sweets.
But I actually really like my more savory flavors more.
So I make a basil with pistachio brittle
from a great small business called brittle and beyond.
And that basil flavor is one of my favorites.
I do a sweet corn flavor.
I source the corn from a local farm this year in Stanford.
And I mix that with a jalapeno jam from a business called
the Jam Sam.
That was one of my favorites.
And then I've done a variety of goat cheese flavors
with different fruits, cookies.
And that's that's also been up there.
This year I did a goat cheese with an apple cinnamon
mandel bread from a local business called Sparks Kitchen
that also has a deeper social impact purpose to them.
So yeah.
Sparks Kitchen, not Sparks Steakhouse.
Right.
Yes, yes.
Big difference.
Rare.
And it's my boss.
I can't remember.
Paul Castellano.
Paul Castellano got murdered.
I just want to.
Gun down.
No murder.
Gun down in cold blood on the east side of Manhattan.
Have you, first of all, those flavors sound amazing.
They're so like, God, I got it.
I'm going to have to I'm going to get down there sometime
after the holiday.
Well, I probably should mention how people can get the ice
cream.
That might be important.
And so right now, if you go to MsMonaMakesIcecream.com,
you can sign up for my email list.
And you'll be alerted when I'm doing events.
You'll also be alerted when I'm doing a local drop.
So most of my purchases are done as a pre-purchase and pickup.
So the best way to get my ice cream
is to really sign up at MsMonaMakesIcecream.com.
And you'll get all of the updates of where I'm going to be
and when ice cream is available.
And also, you should follow me on Instagram,
which is at MsMonaMakesIcecream, because lots of updates
on there, too.
I have already done that.
I have already followed you.
Yay.
I'm following you on Instagram.
All right.
Have you ever had anyone that have you ever met anyone that
just doesn't like ice cream?
I mean, obviously, there are some of those who can't have dairy.
So I do usually try to make a, I know, and I feel for them.
I mean, we should all have dairy in moderation.
Take a latte and get over it.
Yeah.
Do it yourself.
Geez.
I do make fruit sorbet.
So I haven't really explored the non-dairy world.
The problem with non-dairy ice cream
is you just end up having to add a lot of extra stabilizers
and emulsifiers.
And what you said, Dom, at the beginning of the call,
like the conversation, you want to know what's
in your ice cream.
And so those non-dairy flavors have a lot of extra.
They really turn into a science experiment.
So I tend to stay away.
And I'll just really work on some really delicious fruit
sorbets.
I've done a raspberry cilantro that I thought
was really special.
I even had cilantro haters taste it, and they liked it.
So.
I'm not a, I'm a cilantro in moderation person.
I don't dislike cilantro, but I think it's overused sometimes.
And I think, especially in South American or Mexican cooking,
it's like this catch-all where it's like just throw
a bunch of cilantro in there.
That is not, I'm not a fan of that.
I can take in moderation.
What about, does gelato have dairy in it?
So gelato is more milk based.
So less cream, more milk.
That's one of the biggest differences of gelato.
The way it's churned is a little bit differently, too.
So you need a machine that has a gelato setting.
And then obviously it's stored in a slightly different
temperature, right?
It's a little bit softer.
It's not as cold.
So there is a slight different elements between gelato
and ice cream.
But one of the biggest ones is it has a lower fat content.
So less cream, more milk.
Do you make gelato?
No.
I, my, my recipe is a pretty high fat content.
So a lot of, a lot of cream.
It's about 16% fat.
Yeah.
But it's, I mean, if you're going to do it.
Do it.
Like it's ice cream.
Yeah.
Right?
So there's a different like texture and mouthfeel.
Gelato is still very, very creamy.
It's not, it's just the components are a little bit
different.
It's delicious.
I love gelato.
Who doesn't love gelato?
Who doesn't?
I love gelato.
You know, back in the day when I used to, you know, tip
the bottle.
Oh.
I remember those days.
Yeah.
You remember.
I found a company that made wine ice cream.
Have you ever done anything like that?
So I have.
I just for the holidays, for the Thanksgiving holiday,
I did a tipsy tea day flavor that I call with whiskey,
which is also one of my favorites.
And I've done a sorbet with mezcal.
And I've also done two other ice cream flavors
with some other liqueurs.
So not, I haven't done wine, but I've done different alcohols
and liqueurs.
Quite delicious.
It does change the melting point of the ice cream,
right?
Because alcohol freezes at a different temperature.
So ice cream really is a science.
And I've tried to educate myself as much as possible.
I have a stack of ice cream textbooks, actually,
believe it or not.
So sometimes you have to change the ratios when you're
making ice cream with alcohol.
Otherwise, it doesn't freeze at all.
And it's just a soupy mess.
Wow.
See, these are the things that I don't think about.
Like, you think you just make ice cream and put it in the freezer.
But these are, and now I can sort of tell the question
around retail and like, hey, just open a store.
This is like some serious, because it's different than,
so like cooking is kind of like, OK, if you mess it up,
you can add salt.
You can add citrate.
You can add acid.
You can balance things out after the fact.
Baking is more sort of precise and scientific.
And if you don't nail it, this seems like a very sort of,
it's akin to baking, but it's more,
because everything has to be exact.
Like, can you riff when you're making ice cream?
Like, can you go on the fly?
Or does it have to follow a very specific recipe?
So if you're asking a true ice cream scientist,
there actually are ratios that you need to abide by.
Otherwise, it's going to get too grainy
or it's going to get too icy.
But there's a certain level of riffing.
I think it also depends on if you're
using extracts and flavorings, which are not
going to alter the protein and the sugar levels.
But then it becomes, again, less true food.
So for example, if I'm putting roasted marshmallows
in my ice cream, I'm putting in actual roasted marshmallows
and not a roasted marshmallow flavoring.
Granted, there's probably a lot of chunked marshmallows.
But anyway, right.
So if you add flavoring, you don't
have to worry quite as much.
That's not adding fats and it's not adding sugars.
But I did have one big fail a couple of years ago,
and I had to throw out like 70 pints of ice cream.
I was making a tahini flavor.
And it worked really, really well.
And my home machine came out delicious.
And then when I took that exact same recipe
to the commercial ice cream machine,
the speed at which it was incorporating
and sort of spinning the fat was different.
And so all of that extra fat from the tahini just curdled.
And it was unedible.
And I had to throw out a lot of ice cream.
So I couldn't fix that.
When my tahini curdles, it's not a good scene.
If I had a dime for every time, my tahini curdles.
Tahini is pureed.
That could be the name of a band.
It's pureed sesame seeds, right?
Yes, it's kind of like peanut butter.
Yeah.
But it's just a peanut that's sesame.
I think that could be a good name of a band, you know?
Tahini curdling.
Tahini curdles?
Tahini curdles.
That could be our band name.
I am trying to bring up, Ryan, I'm
trying to bring up Mona's website.
Oh, here we go.
So let's check this out.
So this is, I'm going to try to spotlight this, this is going
to be Mona's, this is fantastic.
So this is Mona's, the cutest little ice cream cart ever,
right?
It's a vest.
This is what you bring, Mona.
This is what you bring to the festivals and the fairs
and stuff like that.
That along with about four other coolers.
Doesn't fit as much ice cream as I would like, but it works.
That's right.
And then we've got some of your, oh, the record review.
You know, when you're in the record review, Mona,
you know you've made it.
This is our local town paper here.
And I just wanted to show some clips here.
Sorry for my scrolling.
But look at how amazing this ice cream looks.
Like that, I just want it.
And these fantastic flavors that you've come up with.
Do you take requests ever, Mona?
Yes.
So I do birthday cakes, which will be based on customized
flavors.
And for the right price, we can do some custom pints.
But normally then you'd have to buy at least three pints that
gets made in a serving.
You did scroll past probably one of the most impactful ice
cream moments I've had.
I'd love to share that if you have another moment.
I'm going to get it back.
Way to go down.
Sorry, guys.
OK.
But it was, you know, we talked about this being my side
hustle.
And so last January, I was unfortunately
a third round of layoffs.
I was working, doing social impact for a tech marketing
company, and this weird tech recession
that we've been having.
And it was a really rough day.
It was probably one of the best jobs I've
had with an incredible boss.
And by around 3 o'clock, everything gets shut off.
Those of us that have been laid off know how it goes.
And all of a sudden, I'm like, well,
I guess that's the end of that.
Let me check my ice cream email.
I don't have work email to check.
And I notice that I have hundreds of submissions
from my website where it says, sign up here to learn more.
And I'm like, I'm so confused.
Is this a bot?
Did I get hacked?
And I opened one of the emails.
And where it says, how did you learn about Miss
Mona Makes Ice Cream?
It says, read about you from the New York Times.
You must be blowing up.
And I'm thinking, what?
New York Times.
What are you talking about?
I just got laid off for my job.
And so I do what anyone would do.
I Google my name in New York Times.
And this little article comes up.
And it was part of a larger article about favorite foods
and restaurants for Valentine's Day.
And it happens to be written by the Pulitzer Prize-winning
journalist Jodi Cantor.
If you're not familiar with her by name,
she is one of the two journalists that
broke the Harvey Weinstein case.
Oh, right.
Had a movie made after her.
And her and her husband had been customers of mine in Brooklyn.
And she said that an ice cream cake that I made for her husband
and he gave to her as a gift on Valentine's Day
was one of the most special Valentine's Day gifts she
received.
And that's really all that it took.
It was just a little note by being amazing and incredible,
Jodi Cantor, that blew up my email and my Instagram.
But it just so happened to come on this awful, terrible day
where I got let go for my job.
And the timing and life, right?
What are the chances?
And she had no idea, obviously, that that
had been a really hard day for me.
So really special moment.
And I finally had a chance to thank Jodi in person
back in September.
She was up in the area.
Just really grateful to have supporters like this speak
for my little brand, especially on such difficult days.
That's a cool story.
It's a great, and it's really a great example
of a door closing and a window opening.
And the quote down here, I'll just say from Jodi Cantor,
in the New York Times, speaking of Inside
was a custom ice cream cake he had somehow procured
from Miss Mona, an ice cream company that now operates
as a monthly CST, community-supported treats.
This was the best dessert I have ever eaten.
Thank you, Jodi.
That's incredible.
The best dessert I have ever.
I mean, I couldn't even.
That's a hell of a compliment.
Let's just call it what it is.
Yeah.
It's very grateful.
That's a hell of a compliment.
You can't get any better than that.
That's fantastic.
And I'm really, the ice creams are extremely fantastic.
The textures of the ones that I've had that you've either
gifted me or that I have purchased in a sort of public
event, food truck event, the textures and the flavors,
of course, are extremely good.
The textures really stand out to me.
They taste homemade in a sense of not half-assed.
I don't want to say home.
You say homemade.
It's like, oh, here's a homemade burger that's not
Pat LaFrieda burger.
But this is like, I made this myself, like a house burger.
It's not like that.
It's more of like, you can tell it's made with care and intent.
And very high quality ingredients.
Well, this is the issue is when you try small batch ice cream,
it's hard to go back.
And this is, again, is part of the issue with scaling
an ice cream business.
Because you really do lose that quality when you go to a
co-packer or when you try to scale.
So I think if you're out there and you have a small local
ice cream shop, go for it.
You know, frequent them, buy from them.
It's not an easy business.
Help keep them alive, especially in the winter time.
I'm going to go around the country and sell.
I'm going to be like the Willy Loman of your business.
I'm just going to put the foot in the door.
You have to try this ice cream.
I'm going to need some refrigeration.
Bring me a spoon.
A big spoon.
I'm going to show you something.
I have a flavor, by the way.
If we could do like a blueberry pie with like a hot wings
and like a baked beans, just think about it.
Well, it's not that crazy.
I have done a barbecue sauce flavor with camembert cheese
and candied bacon.
So anything is possible.
Wow.
That's called the cardiologist, right?
That's what we're going to call it.
It also had a very specific audience like that ice cream.
I would say so.
This is fantastic.
We're here on the Sunlight Moonlight podcast.
We're talking with Mona Lipson, who is Ms. Mona Makes Ice Cream.
For all of this information and anything
you want to learn about Mona and her craft,
go to Ms. MonaMakesIceCream.com.
Congrats on landing the dot com.
It's not a dot net.
It's not a dot biz.
The real thing, Ms. MonaMakesIceCream.com.
I am Dom Dorman.
We're here with Ryan Havers.
Mona, at this point in the program,
we move on to a couple of different segments, one of which
is a newer segment that we've introduced
over the last couple of episodes.
And I want you to be a part of it.
Sometimes we do this in front of the guests,
and sometimes it's just Ryan and I.
But today, I want you to be here for this,
because we're basically family.
You're not a stranger.
And so this is the part of the program.
And I have my timer ready to go.
This is the part of the program where Ryan and I
fight for one minute.
So and it's a Ryan, don't bring Mona into this.
No, I won't.
Because we like Mona.
I won't bring Mona into it.
I will bring ice cream into it, but not Mona.
All right, so I'm starting the timer in 3, 2, 1, and it's fight.
OK.
If you were to come up with an ice cream flavor,
it would be stupid, I'm sure, and nobody would like it.
That's you've never.
I bet you've never even made ice cream.
I've made ice cream.
Because you can't.
I've made ice cream.
I don't believe you.
I have.
Look me in my eyes and tell me you've made ice cream.
I have the attachment.
That doesn't mean you've made ice cream.
I've made ice cream.
I'm going to ask your wife.
I've made banana ice cream.
I think you're lying.
Again.
You can't even help yourself anymore.
You can think whatever you want, buddy.
You can't even help yourself anymore.
You can think whatever you want.
Not full of ice cream lies.
For someone to lie about ice cream,
that's like that's intentionally evil.
How much I make ice cream?
I'm going to start a company called Miss Ryan's.
Miss Ryan makes ice cream.
That's a lie, too.
And then you'll, and then you're going
to have so much egg on your face.
All right, that's it.
Fight is over.
I don't know about that.
You can't do that, Ryan.
There's a P rated fight.
There's a, it gets so much worse, Mona.
We were trying to be nice because you're here.
We try not to fight in front of company.
It's hard to, it's hard to be mean to you.
I don't have a problem being mean to you.
I know.
We're having a great time here on the Sunlight Moonlight
podcast where we're talking with Mona Lipson.
Miss Mona makes ice cream.
At this point in the show, Mona, we
want to move on to a segment that does actually include you.
And I did give you a little bit of warning.
Most people don't get warnings, but again, family here.
So this is the part of the show called Easy Uneasy.
And this is where Ryan, being the nice guy that he is,
will ask you a pretty easy question.
And then I, being my cantankerous self,
will follow up with a question that may make you uneasy.
So Ryan.
I'm ready for it.
You think, I mean, most people think they're ready.
And then the time actually comes like right now.
And not so much.
I laugh when I'm nervous.
Can you stop?
OK.
So Ryan, do you want to go first?
Yes.
Is it OK to put pineapple on pizza?
You think that's an easy question?
No, you can't.
You can't put pineapple on pizza.
No.
OK.
Just hard no.
It's hard no.
Then maybe it's a flatbread.
Is there a difference between flatbread and pizza?
Yes.
I don't like flatbread pizza.
I think it's, I think it's fucked up.
I think it's a dodge.
Make pizza or don't.
Don't give me something that somebody would make
if they almost have the ingredients for pizza.
But don't, but still really want pizza.
Listen, you can put pineapple on pizza.
You can eat the pineapple, pineapple, pineapple, pineapple
on the pizza.
I'll eat it.
I would eat it.
I'm not going to say no, but it's not my go-to.
What is your follow-up?
Not easy or uneasy?
What is your go-to?
By the way, your partner has a ridiculous habit around pizza
that I will talk about in a second.
We're here to talk about you.
What is your go-to pizza?
What's your favorite pizza?
I love a good mushroom slice.
That's probably my go-to.
Straight up.
Just mushrooms.
And that's it.
Yeah.
I mean, as you were mentioning, my partner,
he loves meat on the pizza.
So normally, if we're going to share,
it has to be like a mushroom and a meat,
whether it's sausage or a meatball.
But growing up, going to the local slice shop,
it was always a slice of mushroom pizza.
OK.
That's my wife's go-to.
That's her favorite.
I will say so.
I knew I liked your wife.
Mona's partner's ridiculous habit
is that no matter what pizza he is eating,
he immediately, before tasting it, on every slice he eats,
he immediately puts on crushed red pepper
and grated Parmesan cheese.
Sometimes garlic, salt, and oregano.
I like a little garlic salt.
But I like to taste it first.
Lately, I do really like putting the hot honey on the pizza.
That's become a bit of a go-to.
Well, really quickly here, I know, Ryan, you have to drop.
We want to finish up with just a very quick question
and answer, an uneasy question.
How often do you change your sheets?
Not enough.
OK.
I don't think any of us do.
Ryan, any?
That's not any.
Who changes their sheets more than once or twice a month?
Well, that's not the question, though.
Here's the real answer.
The last time I changed the sheets
was about a month ago because the dog threw up
in the middle of the night.
So I was forced to change them a month ago.
You kind of do have kids.
I have a dog.
They throw up.
Ryan, any final thoughts here on the Sunlight Moonlight
podcast with Miss Mona?
Mona, I can't wait to try your ice cream.
I signed up, so I'll get the updates.
And thank you so much for being on.
Thank you so much, Mona.
We had such a great time.
And I can't wait to taste more of your ice cream.
Until next time, MissMonaMakesIceCream.com.
I am Dom Dorman.
That is Ryan Havers over there.
And this is the Sunlight Moonlight podcast.
Take care, folks.
Take care.
Bye.
MUSIC