Ice Cream Social

David Boyer
  • 5.0 (1)
  • Society & Culture

Ice cream is universally joyful, and Ice Cream Social is here to prove it. Hosted by David Boyer, owner of Jupiter Moon Ice Cream, this podcast explores the sweet intersection of ice cream and community. From what makes a great flavor to the memories tied to your first cone, every episode digs into the stories, the people, and the moments that make ice cream more than just dessert. Whether you're a small business owner in the food industry, a local community builder, or just someone who thinks about ice cream way more than the average person (no judgment), this show is for you. David brings the perspective of a hands-on ice cream shop owner running two locations, a busy mobile event business, and more on the way, so the conversations are grounded, real, and genuinely fun. New episodes drop regularly. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, leave a five-star review if you're loving it, and share it with someone who deserves a little more joy in their feed. Because everybody has an ice cream story. What's yours? https://www.jupitermoonicecream.com/

  1. 1d ago

    How Curd Fest Started: A Dairy Princess, a Dirt Road and a Cow That Unplugged a Freezer

    Takeaways Be honest with people who want to start a food business: Alise tells visiting cheesemakers what could go wrong so they begin with open eyes.Learning small skills like plumbing and electrical work can save money and make a business owner feel empowered when cash flow is tight.Make what you like, because if you do not like it, it is not worth your time, even when a flavor you do not love, like mint chip, matters to your customers.Mistakes can become stories: a habanero mix-up produced about 12 gallons of very hot ice cream that was sold with a clear warning.Summary of the Episode In this episode of The Ice Cream Social, host David Boyer closes his conversation with Alise Sjostrom, founder of Redhead Creamery. David asks what lesson she would share with someone standing on the doorstep of starting a cheese business. Alise says it is hard to pinpoint one thing. Aspiring cheesemakers often visit, and she makes sure to tell them what not to do and what could go wrong, because she has had many moments of wondering what she was thinking. Alise says the little things matter most, like plumbing and electrical work, especially when a business owner does not have a lot of cash flow. Fixing things yourself can make your day and save money. David wonders if he should take a refrigeration course to work on his own freezers. They also agree on making what you like, and David shares that mint chip is not his favorite but is essential to enough customers that it is always on his menu. The conversation turns to favorite flavors. David remembers chocolate marshmallow as a kid and a cherry ice cream he ate with his grandpa at a shop called The Ice Cream Parlor. He says lemon poppy seed was one of the first flavors he knew was good once he started making ice cream. He explains how his team samples each batch, decides what went wrong when it is off, and tells the story of a chili mango ice cream that got 100 grams of habanero instead of 10. Finally, the two talk about Curd Fest, the festival Alise started as a June Dairy Month event. It grew from hot dogs and hand-battered cheese curds to food trucks, makers and live music, with about a thousand people this year. David remembers the first year, selling out and driving back for more ice cream, and a cow that kept unplugging their freezer. https://www.jupitermoonicecream.com/

  2. Oct 28

    Spirits From Whey: How Milk Becomes a Distilled Spirit in About a Week

    Takeaways Make what you love, because it is easier to sell and talk about, and Alise's best-selling brie came from that.Ask specialty shop buyers what is missing before you choose a first product, which is how the farmstead cheddar started.Mixing soft cheeses that age in weeks with cheddars that age for months helps cash flow because products reach the market at different times.Whey, the byproduct of cheese, can become a distilled spirit in about a week, and it opens new ideas like boozy ice cream.Summary of the Episode In this episode of The Ice Cream Social, host David Boyer wraps up his visit with Alise Sjostrom, founder of Redhead Creamery, in Part 3. Alise explains how cheese ages. Some cheese can be eaten fresh, soft cheeses like brie and muenster age about two weeks, cheddars age at least six months, and others age up to two years. She says that variety helps cash flow. Alise shares how she chose her first cheeses. She asked specialty shop buyers what was missing in Minnesota, and a buyer from Lunds & Byerlys asked for a Minnesota farmstead cheddar. That became Lucky Linda Cheddar. Later she and her mom started making brie, which is by far the creamery's best seller. Her advice is to make what you love, because it is easier to sell. David says he likes using young brie in ice cream, and the two trade flavor ideas. The conversation turns to spirits made from whey. Alise explains that whey still has lactose, which is broken down with an enzyme, fermented with yeast and then distilled, all in about seven days. She calls the result a smooth, slightly sweet white whiskey, while her husband Lucas compares it to tequila or mezcal. David says he plans to apply for a grant to try boozy ice cream with her spirits. He also talks about not pasteurizing at his shop, wanting to make ice cream from scratch, and keeping a very clean kitchen. Finally, Alise talks about what is next: a blue cheese that is about a year old, and lactic-set cheeses like bove, a cow milk version of chevre. She is learning by trying them rather than reading about them. David jokes that it sounds like an ice cream cheese. The conversation continues in Part 4. https://www.jupitermoonicecream.com/

  3. Oct 21

    Alise Sjostrom on Building a Cheese Business That Brings the Whole Community Along

    Takeaways Community is part of the business plan: Alise sees her marketing as bringing people along for the ride, and David says the same is true for an ice cream shop.Great cheese starts with great milk, and Alise's family has bred their cows for higher fat and protein for about 40 years, which shows up in the cheese.Not standardizing the milk means each batch is a surprise, since many of the cheeses age at least six months before the team learns how that day's milk turned out.Cheese needs four ingredients, milk, cultures, rennet and salt, and salt is easy to overlook in cheese and in ice cream.Summary of the Episode In this episode of The Ice Cream Social, host David Boyer continues his conversation with Alise Sjostrom, founder of Redhead Creamery. Alise shares that she and her husband moved home in 2012 and broke ground in 2013. She measures the years by her daughter, who was three weeks old when they moved back. The two talk about why community sits at the center of both a cheese business and an ice cream shop. Alise describes her marketing as bringing people along with her, and David says he knew when he wanted to open an ice cream shop that he would need to develop a community. Alise then describes the space they built: a cheese shop, a kitchen and a community space that seats 75 people comfortably, with a private speakeasy on the side. The goal was to seat an entire bus at once, where before they could seat about 16 and had to split the group. David asks about the cheese process, and Alise says it takes both art and science. She starts with really good milk. Her parents have been dairy farming together since 1979, and her dad bred their cows for high fat and high protein long before farmers were paid on milk components. Redhead Creamery does not standardize its milk, so with cheeses that age at least six months, the team finds out later what each batch became. Alise then walks through the four ingredients of cheese: milk, cultures, rennet and salt. She explains how rennet solidifies the milk before it is cut into curd and whey, and says she hopes to someday make her own cultures. The talk ends on salt, with David noting that his chocolate and salted caramel ice creams both contain it. The conversation continues in Part 3. https://www.jupitermoonicecream.com/

  4. Oct 14

    How to Start a Food Business on Your Family's Farm: Alise Sjostrom's Redhead Creamery Story [Part 1]

    Takeaways Starting a food business on family land works best when you do something different with what the farm already produces.Food marketing and storytelling matter as much as food science, because anyone can make a product but selling it is the real skill.Working for other specialty food companies first is a smart way to learn the good and the bad of an industry before launching your own brand.Using every product a farm creates, from cheese and milk to yogurt and whey spirits, reduces waste and builds new revenue streams.Summary of the episode In Part 1 of this Ice Cream Social conversation, host David Boyer talks with Alise Sjostrom, founder of Redhead Creamery in Central Minnesota. They open with David's favorite question, what your favorite ice cream flavor was at six years old. Alise says chocolate cherry, and it is still her go-to flavor today. David shares his own childhood favorite, ordered from the milkman in Montana. Alise explains how Redhead Creamery grew out of her family's dairy farm, now in its 13th or 14th year. As the third of four redheads, she always wanted to be part of the farm but wanted to do something different. A visit to a farm cheese operation during her senior year of high school showed her she could make something she loved from her family's own milk. She shares the advice from her University of Minnesota food science advisor, who pushed her toward food marketing so she would know how to sell what she made. After college she worked for a food broker, moved to Vermont for her husband's job, sold cheese at Grafton Village Cheese, and later worked for a cheese company in Wisconsin, learning the industry before building her own. Today the farm produces cheese, creamline whole milk, a drinkable yogurt, and spirits made from whey. Alise's goal is to use every product the farm creates. Part 2 continues the story. https://www.jupitermoonicecream.com/

  5. Oct 7

    How to Handle Bunnies, Doubters, and Grumblers: Community Building Lessons From Tracy Ore

    Takeaways Think big and share the load. Tracy Ore wants to essentially take over the block around the St. Cloud State University Community Garden, and she is bringing in students, the tech college, and partners so the project is not just hers.If you give people what they need, the doubters lose their argument. Tracy's bunny rule: plant 100 cauliflower, then another 100, and around 300 the bunnies get full. She takes the same attitude with people.Ice cream makers and gardeners make great collaborators. Freeze-dried strawberries keep water out of ice cream, and a garden with a giant freeze-dryer, plenty of habaneros, and strawberry basil makes for some serious flavor ideas.Summary of the episode In Part 3 of this conversation on Ice Cream Social, host David Boyer asks Tracy Ore, professor of sociology and director of the community garden at St. Cloud State University, about her ultimate growth plan. She would like to essentially take over the block, acquiring the house next to the garden and redoing it sustainably with solar power and technology designed by students. She is also talking with the tech college about students who could develop a business plan and a marketing plan for the space, and she wants more partners involved so the project is not just hers. Tracy says city officials have told her they want to incorporate the garden into plans to redo the street rather than pave over it, and David describes the garden as a bulwark against encroachments. Then David asks his favorite question: what was your favorite ice cream flavor at six years old? Tracy remembers family reunions in North Carolina, where her father made hand-cranked banana ice cream with rock salt in the yard. As an adult she is not a sweets person and prefers savory flavors, salty and sweet combinations with toffee, pistachio, and strong black licorice, and she enjoyed the strawberry basil that Jupiter Moon made. David shares the flavor he wants to flat out copy: a Ritz cracker toffee ice cream with chocolate swirls and caramel from Holy Cow Ice Cream, which won the tasting at the ice cream conference he attends every year. The two talk spicy ice cream, agreeing that dairy counteracts heat. David lists Aztec chocolate, mango habanero, and a Mexican street corn ice cream he sold only out of the trailer ("I loved it. Nobody else bought it."), and Tracy offers habaneros from the garden and describes the chili blend she makes from all of the garden's hot peppers. They then plan a winter collaboration around freeze-drying. David explains why water is the enemy in ice cream and how a freeze-dried strawberry gives strawberry flavor without little ice chunks, and Tracy has a giant freeze-dryer and locally grown strawberries ready to go, plus the chance to make astronaut ice cream. The conversation closes with the early believers who backed the garden from day one and the doubters who predicted people would just take advantage. Tracy's bunny story sums up her philosophy of giving people, and bunnies, what they need. Both agree that grumblers exist, that it takes a community effort to keep them from being the loudest voice in the room, and that optimism is a choice worth making. https://www.jupitermoonicecream.com/

  6. Sep 30

    Garden Lady: How 20 Years of Showing Up Earned a Professor a Place in Her Community with Tracy Ore

    Takeaways Big ideas can take years, so keep saying them out loud. Tracy Ore talked about creating a tomato unique to St. Cloud State from 2010 until a botanist arrived in 2022 and said it was easy, and now students have made more than 2,000 crosses.A garden with no fences, no fees, and no application can work. After 20 years, Tracy has seen people contribute well beyond what they take, the opposite of the tragedy of the commons.Community projects need a succession plan. Tracy is raising money to hire an executive director who can shadow her and carry the garden's core principles forward, so the work lasts beyond any one person.Summary of the episode In Part 2 of this conversation on Ice Cream Social, host David Boyer and Tracy Ore, professor of sociology and director of the community garden at St. Cloud State University, dig into the Husky tomato. The name honors the university mascot, though Tracy admits a different husky tomato already exists, so a tweak like "husky red and black tomato" may be coming. Tracy had pitched the idea of a tomato unique to campus since 2010, until Dr. Angela McDonnell, a botanist and biology professor who had just been cross-pollinating eggplants, arrived in 2022 and told her it was easy. Students and faculty started with striped and black tomato varieties and have now completed more than 2,000 crosses across four generations, with students presenting their work at conferences. The goal is a flavorful, attractive, consistent black and red tomato about the size of a cocktail tomato. This summer they planted seven seed sets, labeled them in secret, and Tracy and Dr. McDonnell each independently identified two seed sets they wanted. One selection is now growing in the greenhouse, and its very dark purple seedlings showed off a plant science concept called hybrid vigor. Tracy describes the flavor as sweeter and deeper than most tomatoes, great on a sandwich, and David is already dreaming of a tomato ice cream. He mentions that Crew has recently been experimenting with tomato ice cream of their own. The conversation then tours the rest of the garden: 20 varieties of okra, 30 varieties of eggplant, nearly 100 varieties of hot peppers, bitter melon, snake gourd, 12 kinds of basil, shiso, lemongrass, lemon balm, lemon verbena, and house-made tea blends. Tracy grows a wide diversity of plants so that no matter who walks in, they see something familiar, and she delivers herbs regularly to local businesses. Looking back on 20-plus years, Tracy shares a Grace Lee Boggs line from her email footer about staying in one place being the most radical thing she ever did. Staying put has given her a foundation and a community that shows up when things get hard. She shares a funny story about being greeted as "Garden lady" by the food sample guy at Costco, and says she feels she has earned a respectable place in the community and has the best job in the world. The episode wraps up with the future. David is eager to build serious ice cream collaborations with the garden, following the strawberry basil flavor Jupiter Moon made last year. Tracy shares her vision for The Commons, a house between the gardens that would become a food education and food preservation center with a cafe run by a tech college culinary arts program, plus a professional kitchen for community gatherings and ice cream collaborations. She is giving herself four years to raise money for an executive director, and has dreams of hiring a chief jam officer. Part 3 arrives next week. https://www.jupitermoonicecream.com/

  7. Sep 23

    Stay Long Enough to Name Its Problems: Community Building Lessons From a Community Garden with Tracy Ore

    Mentioned in this show: PBS Doc on Grace Lee Boggs: https://www.pbs.org/video/pov-american-revolutionary-meet-grace-lee-boggs/ Grace Lee Boggs children's book: https://link.amazon/B01TZGEbm Takeaways Real community change starts when you stay put. Tracy Ore's mentor challenged her to stay in one place long enough to name its problems with authority, and that challenge turned into a community garden that is still growing 20 years later.You do not need to know how to do something before you start. Tracy had never grown a vegetable before launching the St. Cloud State University Community Garden, and today it grows 95 varieties of tomatoes and is developing a brand-new one.Borrow companion planting for your community work. Instead of seeing other organizations as competition, ask what each partner brings to the table and how everyone's contributions can build on each other. In Part 1 of this conversation on Ice Cream Social, host David Boyer welcomes Tracy Ore, a professor of sociology and the director of the community garden at St. Cloud State University. David opens by explaining why the show exists: community and ice cream, and the people in central Minnesota doing their own thing for the same reason he started Jupiter Moon. Tracy is, in his words, the right guest. Tracy shares the origin story of the St. Cloud State Community Garden. In 2004, a mentor asked how she liked living in St. Cloud, and Tracy said she hated it and wanted to leave. That mentor, Grace Lee Boggs, told her you can't always just leave, and that you need to stay in one place long enough to name its problems with authority and then do something about it. A year later, in 2005, Tracy started a garden, even though she had never grown a garden or a vegetable in her life. Twenty years later, the garden grows 95 varieties of tomatoes, with a 96th on the way: the Husky tomato, a red and black striped variety being developed with a botanist and students. It has just completed its first field trial, and the sixth generation is already growing in the greenhouse. The conversation then turns to what it takes to make a community better. Tracy came to this work as a community organizer and a sociologist who studies inequality, and after living in her neighborhood for more than 27 years, she says she understands the community well enough to add real context when someone says "this is what's going on." She borrows a gardening term to describe how she works with partners like Jupiter Moon: companion planting. David connects it to his own reason for opening an ice cream shop, and both land on the same word for what their spaces create: joy. The episode closes with a look at Grace Lee Boggs, the Detroit activist and philosopher who shaped Tracy's life, the PBS documentary about her, and a children's book about Grace and her husband James Boggs that turns out to have a personal connection to Tracy. It is another in a summer of surprise connections. The conversation ran long, so David splits it into three parts, with Part 2 coming next week. https://www.jupitermoonicecream.com/

  8. Sep 16

    Inside Bruno Press 2.0: Why Mary Bruno Stopped Chasing What People Want

    Takeaways Sometimes the biggest business turning point isn't a new product, it's dropping the instinct to chase what you think people want and making what you actually like instead.A workshop full of strangers can do something a curated event can't. By the end of an hour, people are making plans together, proof that community can form fast when there's a shared, hands-on thing to do.Even the process behind the work, like mixing ink or running a steamroller over a print, can be the thing people actually want to see, not just the finished product.In the final part of this conversation, host David Boyer catches up with Mary Bruno, owner of Bruno Press, about everything she has going on right now. She is deep into a large public art commission for a soon-to-open apartment building, representing different cultures and communities through hands, not faces, and working against a tight deadline with a team of six summer interns. She also has upcoming workshops in the shop, including a cyanotype session (sun printing), and is preparing for the Southwest Print Fiesta this October in New Mexico, where she will teach and produce a 36 inch steamroller print. The conversation turns to why Mary's workshops matter, tying back to the show's running theme of memory and community. Unlike her curated print parties, the open workshops bring together total strangers who are, in her words, friends by the end of the hour, leaving with a finished print and plans to see each other again. David points out that this is really Mary's business model: creating the kind of connection that keeps people coming back. Mary shares the bigger story behind that shift. It took her about 15 years to stop making what she thought people wanted and start making what she actually liked, opening her doors to let people watch and take part in the process. A video of her simply mixing ink went viral, which taught her people were more interested in process than she expected. That post-pandemic pivot became what she now calls Bruno Press 2.0, and by her account, it has been the biggest change for her business, financially and otherwise. The episode closes on a personal note between two people who have known each other a while, with David thanking Mary for making time and Mary returning the compliment about David's own community-building work. No Part 4 is teased, closing out this three-part conversation. Key Topics Covered Mary's large-scale public art commission for a new apartment buildingWorking under deadline pressure with a team of six summer internsBruno Press's cyanotype workshop (sun printing)The Southwest Print Fiesta in New Mexico, and Mary's 36 inch steamroller printWhy Bruno Press's open workshops build community faster than curated eventsThe connection between workshops, memory, and running a small businessMary's 15-year shift from making what people want to making what she likesHow a viral ink-mixing video changed her approach to sharing her process"Bruno Press 2.0": Mary's post-pandemic business philosophyWrapping up the three-part conversation between David and Maryhttps://www.jupitermoonicecream.com/

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Ice cream is universally joyful, and Ice Cream Social is here to prove it. Hosted by David Boyer, owner of Jupiter Moon Ice Cream, this podcast explores the sweet intersection of ice cream and community. From what makes a great flavor to the memories tied to your first cone, every episode digs into the stories, the people, and the moments that make ice cream more than just dessert. Whether you're a small business owner in the food industry, a local community builder, or just someone who thinks about ice cream way more than the average person (no judgment), this show is for you. David brings the perspective of a hands-on ice cream shop owner running two locations, a busy mobile event business, and more on the way, so the conversations are grounded, real, and genuinely fun. New episodes drop regularly. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, leave a five-star review if you're loving it, and share it with someone who deserves a little more joy in their feed. Because everybody has an ice cream story. What's yours? https://www.jupitermoonicecream.com/

Information

  • Creator
    David Boyer
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    22
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Jupiter Moon Ice Cream
  • Show Website
    Ice Cream Social

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