You might have walked into Cream, on Avenue of the Americas in Lakewood, one time or many…whether for some gelato, an acai bowl, coffee frappe, or one of those eye-opening Belgian waffle-and-ice cream plates with all the drizzles. I’m there at least every other week to pick up the fresh sorbet that’s in the freezer–there is nothing like it. I always felt like it was one of my little culinary secrets (I suppose, until now). I scoop the sorbet whenever I’m entertaining on Friday night and add garnishes…it’s so different, so fresh, not like anything any of us ever tasted from the supermarket freezer. I savor it.
What I didn’t know–and what you’re all going to discover with me–is what is going on beneath Cream, right under our feet. Imagine it–the ice cream workshop. The batch freezers are running, layers of creamy, fresh vanilla gelato are oozing out into those iconic gelato pans. The gelatieres (that’s Italian for ice cream workers) are standing by, ready with their wide spatulas to fold in the caramel or cookie crumbs–or to swirl together the mango with the striking blood red orange sorbet (not on the same day–pareve production goes before dairy). They work fast and work cold. Then, they’re hand-packing the artisanal gelato–made in small batches–into pints, and as you watch them, all you really want to do is jump in. Or dig in. There is nothing in the world like ice cream, fresh from the machine.
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But hold that thought. Let’s go back. For just a moment. It was back in June of 2020 when I met Laurie Abady at one windowside table at Cream. It was there, with my recorder running, that she told me the miraculous story of the mikveh of Curacao–the oil-rich Caribbean island in the furthest waters of the Caribbean sea, where life is colorful, yet calm, and the extended Abady family flourished in commerce and politics for the last 100 years. It was also where Aron’s father, Sir Victor Abady, former director of the Central Bank, had been one of the youngest men to be knighted by Queen Beatrix of Holland.
We told you about the Abady’s determination to build the mikveh there–and about the heavy, oddly uncharacteristic rainstorms that fell from the heavens the day of its completion. This was in the land, just besides the equator–where it does not rain.
But you don’t know part two of the story: the Abadys did not stay in Curacao for much longer. Even though Aron’s family was there, and the business was there, after 10 years of marriage, once their eldest was 9-years-old, the time had come. The boys needed to go to yeshiva. They couldn’t wait longer. This was not a place to raise a frum family.
So they picked up and left the comfort of Curacao, landing in Lakewood, New Jersey. In Curacao, Aron’s family was in the fashion and jewelry business for generations, and the businesses were well-established. But in a new country he needed a new business.
“I was in the process of opening Circa and I was looking for good ice cream. My uncle, who is also in the restaurant business, said, ‘Why don’t you make it?’”
Aron’s uncle is from Milan, Italy–it’s where Aron spent all his summer growing up and where he collected his fondest childhood memories. While the Abady family had gone from Syria to Curacao, Aron’s maternal grandparents were Egyptian Jews who went to Milan once the Jews were expelled. Leaving their island home, the Abadys would go off to Europe, spending time at the seaside resort of Forte dei Marmi, where Sephardic Jews of Milan had their summer homes.
In Italy, the taste–and the spirit–of gelato is very different from American ice cream.
“From that previous life, I know what the mousse au chocolat in the Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo tastes like. And I knew what real gelato is supposed to taste like. I couldn’t bring myself to buy and sell ice cream that didn’t taste like I knew it could. I had a goal–to make a proper product in chalav Yisrael that people can enjoy.”
To learn how to make ice cream, he trained with the famed master gelato professor Luciano Ferrari. But he wasn’t going to just learn how to make ice cream.
“I started working with him–I had to learn to make everything from scratch. Other ice cream makers buy their bases or pastes ready-made. A lot of companies will sell ready made strawberry purees. But none of this would be good enough for the chalav Yisrael market. I believe that’s why our product tastes better today. There’s no junk, no fillers. Those things compromise the taste. It’s pure. Even for Pesach–we could have bought the coconut milk in our Pina Colada sorbet–but my son Victor said, ‘Let’s make it.’”
Aron explains to me that gelato has less butterfat than ice cream–but the reason it has more flavor is because there’s less air and more product per square inch.
“Someone told me, ‘For the bottomline, why don’t you up the air quality 20%, and you can get 20% more product from each batch. Who will know?’ I said, no. We will know. When you’re making food, and you sacrifice some things, it comes out in the taste.”
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The sorbet and gelato you will find in supermarkets everywhere this Pesach season–under strict supervision of Tarnipol and the KCL of Lakewood–is the same artisanal product you enjoy when you stop into Cream Gelateria. And the flavors are so, so tempting.
“When you go to a trade show in the U.S., everyone is rushing and working hard all day. They don’t even take lunch,” Laurie tells me.
“….But we go to trade shows in Italy too. At around noon, all the booths empty out and you see everyone around the lunch tables. They’re relaxing; they’re eating pasta, they’re eating gelato, they’re drinking wine. No one has their phone out, they’re talking and connecting. That’s why our motto is– ‘Slow down, enjoy life, mangio gelato’–eat gelato. The whole mentality behind gelato is not about indulging and binging and feeling guilty. It’s sit down, slow down, enjoy, it’s good for you. In Italy, all people enjoy gelato. Old people, young people…they’re all savoring it and it’s not, ‘Omg, now I’ll be on a diet the rest of the week.’ In the frum world, we got very American in our busy hectic running honking lives. Everyone is so busy being busy. We don’t step back and enjoy. We want to bring some of that here.”
And now they have.
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