Time for Ice Cream

Modern Milk Bar

In the days before refrigeration, ice cream was a true luxury. The poor might have languished in cold, damp homes but the year-round availability of ice to cool drinks and make ice cream was the birthright of the very rich.

The delectable treat was first reported in the American colonies in May 1744 when Maryland Governor Thomas Bladen put it on his dessert table. The sight of something frozen to eat on a warm spring evening astonished the guests and William Black of Virginia wrote about “a Dessert no less curious: Among the Rarities … was some fine Ice Cream which, with the Strawberries and Milk, eat most Deliciously.”

Black would be even more astonished at the Modern Milk Bar in Sheffield. The modern amenities and sparking interior would no doubt leave him nonplussed as would the selection of more than 20 flavors of soft-serve and hard ice cream, presented in many ways and with toppings that range far beyond the strawberry ice cream that Bradley found to “eat most Deliciously.”

Lee and Raven Krueger opened their ice cream shop a year ago in May where Raven, a nutritionist with a background in the food industry, creates classic flavors for the ice cream they handcraft in their shop.

The Kruegers insist on using only the finest ingredients. “We could have just bought ice cream and sold it,” said Lee Krueger, “but Raven wanted to control the quality.”

He explained that ice cream’s quality results from freshness and the amount of air whipped into it. Air produces a smoother, lighter and less dense ice cream while freshness comes from the ingredients they source.

“We get our fresh cream from the happy cows at Ronny Brook Farm which is just 23 miles away,” said Raven. “Ronnybrook loves their cows—all the ladies have names and the kids love them.”

The couple purchases about a hundred gallons at a time of Ronnybrook’s pasteurized ice cream base, consisting of milk, cream and sugar. They convert that to about 150 gallons of ice cream with purchased Green Mountain Flavors, a firm whose products contain no artificial dyes and whose flavors come from real food ingredients. This season, the Kruegers added gosupernatural sprinkles for their cakes and their ice cream toppings.

Raven herself makes purees and dehydrates fruit to use in their ice cream while Lee takes all the ingredients and mixes them together to create three-gallon buckets of frozen confections in different flavors.

“Twenty flavors is enough,” said Raven Krueger. “I might throw in a special here and there for some holiday but we want to be known for the classic flavors. There are people doing amazing (things) with different flavors but we don’t want to be known for that.”

Browned butter pecan, honey strawberry, maple walnut, black raspberry and chocolate peanut butter are a few of the offerings. Cherry pistachio, a staple on Long Island but not around here, has found its way onto their menu.

That does not mean she doesn’t innovate. One product does not fit all—no matter how rich and satisfying it might be. Thus she crafts a chocolate vegan ice cream from coconut milk (she likes its fat content, which produces a creamy product), sugar-free ice creams and low-fat frozen yogurts in fruity flavors such as mango. “The flavor selection will rotate so make sure to try it often,” she says.

Some things, such as marshmallow, must be purchased but Raven spends a lot of time in their work area “dicing and slicing,” to make the specialty toppings used in sundaes, banana splits and the like. Her toppings include strawberry, raspberry shrub, wet walnuts, caramelized pineapple, roasted salted nuts, dark chocolate shell, caramel, hot fudge, “Milk Bar Mix” and “Lux Granola”.

Her creativity does not stop there. She makes and bakes such treats as confetti cakes and brownies, Flying Saucers (soft-serve flavors sandwiched between thin chocolate cookies) and even Mutt Bones (soft-serve vanilla ice cream sandwiched between milk bones).

All this productivity is a new venture for the couple. They hail from eastern Long Island where he was in the construction industry and she had a background in the restaurant business.

“We retired, sold our house and went on a cross-country sabbatical in a camper van,” said Lee. They traveled from the East to the West Coast, looking for where they might like to settle. Lee had spent time in the Berkshires over the years and they found themselves comparing the rest of the country to the beauty they had found here.

Returning East, they found a home in Sheffield and began to look for a place to begin a new business. “There was an ice cream shop on Long Island that we liked and we used to think, ‘That can’t be hard,’” Raven related.

Even though they had no experience in the industry, they searched for a place where they might establish a shop. They noticed a little business site on Route 7, near their home, that had been vacant for many years and decided it would be the perfect spot. There was only one problem: The owner didn’t want to sell.

Nevertheless, Lee asked their realtor to approach the owner. Ironically, she had always dreamed of opening an ice cream shop herself and when she heard of the Krueger’s plans, she unexpectedly said yes.

Lee’s construction skills came into play as they renovated the building into a bright, modern milk bar.

“We spent a whole year learning about ice cream,” he said. “I come from a cooking family,” Raven added. “Preparing food does not scare me.” Together they created a site and a product that has drawn an ever-increasing clientele.

“A three-gallon bucket of one flavor will last three to four days during the peak season,” Lee said—a happy circumstance as he says as “you want your ice cream to circulate.”

Cars traveling along busy Route 7 are finding their way to the busy little shop, which ironically is only a few hundred yards from the former F-2 restaurant (whose last incarnation was as The Frog). Older residents will remember the F-2 as the ice cream destination of their childhood in the 1940s and ‘50s.

During their first year, the couple kept the business open through the cold months, only closing in March. They will evaluate that plan this year, probably closing for January, February and March. “People lose their interest in ice cream when it’s cold,” he confessed.

The shop is located at 529 Route 7; (413) 248-1041;. modernmilkbar@gmail.com. It is open Monday-Thursday, noon to 8PM, and Friday and Saturday 9PM and is closed Sunday.