Planning Our Event at Purple Door Ice Cream on August 12, with Mitch Teich Interviewing Jeff Miller, Author of Scoop.

Today Mitch Teich and I met with Steve Schultz of Purple Door Ice Cream, to plan out our event with Jeff Miller, author of Scoop: Notes from a Small Ice Cream Shop. The event is at Purple Door Ice Cream, Mitch will be interviewing Jeff for Lake Effect, and Boswell will be providing the books.It happens on Tuesday, August 12, 7 pm. Seems simple, right?

The first thing that happened was that I marked the date wrong for the meeting. Better for a meeting than an event, right? That's ok, Jannis and I brought back a pint of Juniper Lime ice cream. And we stopped by Indulgence Chocolatiers' new shop next door. Julie the owner was there. I had a salted caramel chocolate, at Jannis's suggestion. It was a giant pop of flavor and it made me quite happy, almost forgetting my error.

Then today I went back and was greeting by a cool chalk drawing of Waldo. Yes, Purple Door is one of our destinations for the Find Waldo Local. So is Indulgence, but at the Shorewood location.

Their new location is just beautiful, with clean lines and an easy-to-read flavor board and a very simple ordering board. There's enough purple to reinforce the brand and a whimsical wall of ice cream spoons that attracts the eye. but it's the flavors that really tell the story.

Before I left for the meeting, several of my booksellers were buzzing about the garlic ice cream. The ice cream is made in small batches so who knows if the flavors I mention will be there when you visit. Among the selections I pondered were fig and black tea, blackberry quark, graham cracker, and tropical sorbet . I mentioned to Steve that I've seen some talk of avocado ice cream, and Steve mentioned that this was a trending flavor.

After looking at the space layout, we decided it would be better for most attendees to stand, much like Amy Stewart's Drunken Botanist event at Great Lakes Distillery. We decided we didn't need a mike. Jannis can sell books off of one of the eating tables. Heck, Jen and I have been selling books at fundraiser dinners off of tiny cocktail tables! Because we have another offsite at the Milwaukee Public Library (J.A.Jance! at 6:30), we'll have one dedicated person at each offsite and I'll go back and forth between them. Alas, unlike the last time I did this in Elm Grove, the parking might be a bit trickier. Perhaps I can roller skate?

There were a few more details to be worked out. I agreed to have an 11x17 version of our sign made. And then I brought back a scoop of lemon cardamon by request for Amie.