Tuesdays, Mondays, We All Scream for Sundaes!
Email: 
Share: 
Cheap Dates
September 4, 2008 - 11:00pmWishing you were back at the beach instead of back at Cayuga Lake? Dreading your inevitable return to Uris Library? Can’t bring yourself to hit the books? If you’ve got the end-of-summer blues, don’t despair! Cheap Dates is back to help you and that special someone put off studying a little longer and enjoy the last bit of summer — without breaking the bank. With the end of summer fast approaching, we thought we should spotlight one of our favorite summer pastimes: digging into a rich, creamy scoop of ice cream! Today we offer three sweet suggestions for spending a lazy summer afternoon with your sweetheart.
$ Head over to the Cornell Dairy Bar for some reasonably priced and incredibly delicious ice cream. For just $2.60 you can get two huge scoops of decadent Cornell Dairy ice cream piled high atop a sugar cone. For those of you who want something on the lighter side, they offer kiddie scoops as well as a selection of refreshing fruit sorbets. The Dairy Bar features many flavors unique to the Cornell campus, including Dean’s Berry Swirl, Cornelia’s Dark Secret and later in the semester, the best flavor created by the Food Science 101 class. And the best part of all: the Dairy Bar accepts Big Red Bucks!
$$ If you know about the history of the ice cream sundae, then you have probably heard of Purity Ice Cream Co. Purity Ice Cream is an Ithaca classic, dating back to 1936. Today’s company still makes ice cream with the original Purity recipes. The company uses local, natural, high quality ingredients to create out-of-this-world flavors. Try their classic mint chocolate chip or fudgey-peanut buttery goose trax. If you don’t want ice cream, you can try a shake, a malt or an apple crisp sundae. Make sure you arrive hungry, as even a small $1.94 one-scoop cup is about the size of a baseball!
$$$ If you consider yourself a real ice cream aficionado and need some truly original flavors, hop in the car and drive up the left side of Cayuga Lake to the Cayuga Lake Creamery. The Creamery offers a smorgasbord of flavors at 68 (we counted!). Of course they have vanilla, chocolate and the other staples, but some are so unusual that you can’t help but salivate when you hear their descriptions: from “The O.C.,” a chocolate ice cream with orange juice, triple sec and orange zest and “Ultimate Fudge Brownie” (yum!) to “Jalapeno Popper,” a cream cheese ice cream with jalapeno peppers and raspberry habanero pepper sauce swirl. Can’t wait till February for the Ithaca Chili Fest? Try Cayuga Creamery’s “Chilifest Chocolate” and taste for yourself how well chocolate and chili go together. If that wasn’t enough to entice you, Cayuga Lake Creamery makes sorbets and ice creams out of wines from local wineries. We love the Swedish Hill Doobie Blues Orange Sorbet. Visit www.cayugacreamery.com for a full list of flavors.
Make sure to take advantage of these sweet ice cream deals before the Ithaca winter turns us all into popsicles!