| Ice Cream Man: 25 Years at Toscanini's | 
 enlarge | Buy New: $0.49
Avg. Customer Rating:   (based on 11 reviews)
Sales Rank: 526251
Category: Book
Author: Gus Rancatore With Helen Epstein
Publisher: Amazon
Studio: Amazon
Manufacturer: Amazon
Label: Amazon
Language: English (Published)
Media: Digital
Pages: 35
ASIN: B000JLTS8U
Publication Date: October 12, 2006
Release Date: October 12, 2006
Availability: Available for download now
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Product Description
A highly entertaining, idiosyncratic mini-memoir, with recipes, about 25 years of running a gourmet ice cream shop down the street from Harvard and MIT. Gus Rancatore shares his initiation into ice cream making, catering to customers, managing employees, and tracking changes in music, teen culture, and the urban landscape. (Photo of Gus Rancatore by Mikki Ansin)
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| Customer Reviews: Read 6 more reviews...
 Too Bad He was doing this and NOT paying taxes! January 21, 2008
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
Well all of Gus' glory has been seized by the gov't for failure to pay back taxes of $167,000 - some 140,000+ of that was in F&B tax which means his good customers paid the taxes and he pocketed it. THEN he has the gall to set up a website asking his customers to pay again, this time in the form of 25,000 so he can reopen.
 Delicious! October 13, 2007
Enjoyable and easy to read - as if I'm sitting with him chatting and listening to him tell his story. Engaging and candid. Great insights - not just into the ice cream making business, but also lessons he learned about human interactions, culture, and life. He also shares a few recipes for ice cream.
I loved it! January 8, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Excellent and entertaining writing, fascinating story. Epstein's descriptive talents are evident. She exquisitely captures every aspect of Toscanini's, from the delicious ice cream and coffee to the complex and interesting employees and customers. When does the book come out?
At Toscanini's Ice Cream Store December 19, 2006
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
While reading this story, I really had the impression I was sitting at Toscanini's Ice Cream Store. It seemed to me that I could actually see Gus Rancatore talking with his customers.
Gus is not only an great ice-cream man, he is also a man who is able to create a peaceful, happy and intriguing atmosphere. This story gives an excellent idea of what great experience you can have when you get an ice-cream or an espresso at Toscanini's and Gus is around and not too busy.
Icy Crossroads For Skating Around Multi-cultural Cream. December 14, 2006
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This Short covers 35 engrossing pages. The below quotes don't even hint at the littering of satisfying history and taste. Toward the end (which you don't want it to), Gus blurted to an employee: >> "You know I had hoped never to say this, but I have been doing this longer than you've been alive, so why don't we pretend - just for a minute - that I might be right." << Don't underestimate the potent intelligence of The Ice Cream Man.
Mood shifts in this Short were fascinating, accompanying Gus's growth as he related his life to his cool calling. I felt the attitudes of the times reflected through Gus's philosophical treats, through the evolution of his rules for Toscanini's. Rancatore's political interjections were interesting, along with the process for naming and locating Toscanini's. The keys appeared to have been, "Crossroads, mulitcultural, and mixed demographics." Gus's story also exposed self-awareness and character development:
>> Everything about the work suited me. Making ice-cream is not a job that requires a uniform or silence or decorum or a socially acceptable personality.... You can choose the order in which you do your work and have flexible hours, but you do need physical strength and patience for repetition.... I liked working by myself or with writers waiting for their manuscripts to be accepted (Amazon Shorts!), musicians waiting for .... <<
Here's a sample of the yummy detail included in this Short, about ice cream making, described in exquisitely clear syntax: >> ...ice cream is less forgiving than chocolate. You can't improvise the way you can at the stove; you have to measure carefully and maintain technique through repetition....I learned to listen to the sound of the motor that deepened as the ice cream thickened.... to understand how the ingredients, the equipment, even the weather all affect the ice cream."
Among Gus's noted trials for his opening: >> The night before we opened I had a nightmare. In it, a customer comes into the new store and approaches the counter where I'm working. He asks: who's in charge? When I say I am, he... <<
After opening and getting through the first year: >> Even in New England, business slows down in November and, during that first dark winter, I would close early and roam up and down the aisles of supermarkets looking for things I might freeze.... I mixed some orange juice and vanilla extract into my sweet cream recipe. Half an hour later, I was eating my childhood memory.... <<
Immediately caught by Gus's accounts of the types of people and their purposes for buying his ice cream, I felt the distance widen between my eyebrows:
>> Once, a customer came up to me and whispered: "Do you know that every famous young physicist in the world is at the center table eating ice cream right now?".... (Regarding another visitation) we tried to casually go about our business while trying to figure out whether the man who arrived with an entourage in saffron robes was the real Dalai Lama or just one of our many local lamas. (It was the real Dalai Lama, and he ordered a chocolate cone). <<
According to Gus, during a 25 year history, Toscanini's flavors have often been named "Best of Boston." Robert B. Parker's Spenser series has also spanned that time and town, providing possibly the best fictional flavor of a renaissance P. I. Since Spenser has narrated nuances of Boston culture since 1976, I wondered if that series has ever mentioned Toscanini's. Here's a sort of connection from THE ICE CREAM MAN to Parker's Spenser, given Spenser's habit of cooking for himself: >> In 1973, Boston was not a town you lived in for the food. There were three exceptions so popular that people waited patiently on long lines: the original Pizzeria Regina in the North End, the first Legal Sea Foods in Inman Square, and Steve's. <<
Beginning the rich history of his coming to fruition as THE ICE CREAM MAN via Steve's, Gus reminisced, >> ... (In Somerville there was) a storefront called Steve's that made its own ice cream. It was the kind of place that made you think: this is why we came to Boston. It wasn't an old-fashioned ice cream parlor with mirrors and a soda fountain. It wasn't a chain like Friendly's or a Howard Johnson's with its twenty-eight flavors where you went with your family. It was an ice cream store for adults. <<
"Indeed," as Spock would say.
I visualize Spock in Toscanini's, staring at The Dali Lama. When Robert B. Parker walks in the door, all flavors will rise and ascend. In such auspicious company, fueled by ice cream, why, I could even imagine Spenser materializing right there and then!
In Amazon Shorts, varieties of flavor are endless, and all is possible:
Coal & Coca-cola
Linda Shelnutt
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