Half Pint is a small, owner-operated homemade ice cream company based out of Seattle, Washington. Our ice creams are made fresh weekly with local dairy and eggs and other local ingredients when possible.

It’s been a loooooong winter. Rain, snow, sleet and hail–and LOTS of it! Half Pint has been chomping at the bit in anticipation of sunny days, warm weather and FARMERS MARKET SEASON 2009! And it’s almost here. This summer you will be able to find Half Pint Ice Cream at four weekly markets: Thursdays at Lake City, Fridays at Phinney Ridge, Saturdays in Edmonds and Sundays at Broadway. See the website for start-dates, market locations and times.

During the winter months, we’ve been thinking a lot about Half Pint and how we can make our product and services even better for our loyal customers. One big change is that we are in the process of purchasing a big ‘ol industrial ice cream machine. Whereas last year we spent HOURS upon HOURS making batch after batch of ice cream on teeny tiny little Cuisinart ice cream makers, this year production will be on a somewhat larger scale and definitely on a faster timeline. Batch sizes will still be quite small in the grand scheme of things, thus retaining the quality of our ice cream. But having this machine will allow us to do a whole lot more with Half Pint; more events, more parties, more markets.

We are also going to be switching to local dairy Smith Brothers Far for all of our milk, cream and eggs. We already try to use local ingredients in our ice cream when possible (berries from the market, coffee from local roaster, Victrola, etc.) and we are very excited about adding dairy and eggs, the main bulk of our ingredients to the local list.

Another exciting tidbit is that Half Pint will be participating FareStart’s Guest Chef on the Waterfront event on Wednesday, July 15th from 6-9 pm. For those of you who don’t know what FareStart is, it is an amazing local non-profit that provides job training to homeless men, women and youth through job training in the food service industry. Check out more information about FareStart at www.farestart.org. The Guest Chef on the Waterfront event is an annual fundraiser that FareStart holds. It is a food and beverage tasting event in which over 80 Seattle-area restaurants, breweries and wineries participate. More info at http://www.farestart.org/help/events/waterfront/index.html. Half Pint will be scooping mini ice cream cones at the event, so be sure to check it out! It’s a blast.

That’s about it from the Half Pint home-front. We’re so looking forward to seeing you all at the markets this summer and will keep you posted on any other events in which we will be participating!