Young's Jersey Dairy

A potent legacy from my father Dale Zickefoose is my penchant for roadfood. Not burgers and fries, but real cooking with local foods and especially small local creameries. He was in absolute heaven at the ice cream counter of a store attached right to the dairy where the cream was processed. If they had black raspberry or black walnut ice cream, they made his day, his week, his month. All the better if you could smell the cow manure in the parking lot. He was a farm boy and loved that smell. Got that gene!

Why, I believe he's eating ice cream. What do you know. Photo by Larry Fitch.

Dad ate local way before it was cool. He'd take us on road trips just to go to a little restaurant he'd ferreted out, and he'd order the weirdest thing on the menu. Not having heard of a dish was his signal to try it. I got that entire complex of genes from Dad. His food pilgrimages with the family in tow are some of my fondest childhood memories--slurping peanut soup and eating peanut pie in Surrey, Virginia, for instance. He loved a restaurant that had sweetbreads on the menu. Don't even ask. Click if you must.

Note that the statue actually depicts a Jersey cow. It is not a Holstein painted brown. I liked that. And of course I bought their homemade cheese, and it is excellent.

So, on my first trip to this part of Ohio, when I exited Interstate 70 and found this sign on Route 68 heading into Yellow Springs, it was all I could do not to slam on the brakes and stop right then and there. I went into town, met my contacts, and informed them that one thing I meant to make time to do before I left was to patronize Young's, a request my hosts happily fulfilled. I am not a diva, I explained, but there are some things I simply must demand.

I walked in and stopped before the extensive ice cream flavor menu. It was meant to be: they had Black Walnut. I ordered it for Dad, and I swear I could feel him smiling down as I devoured it.
Two of my favorite things: my little Forester, and a black walnut ice cream in a waffle cone. It was beyond delicious, Jersey rich, Jersey smooth, subtly infused with the purple notes of black walnut, with fresh little chunks of nut throughout.

On this latest trip, I made two stops there, one each day. I fought with myself a bit the last morning when I was leaving to head for Cedar Bog. Should I really have an ice cream cone at 10:30 AM?

When and where was I going to get another black walnut waffle cone made from local Jersey milk?

Carpe cream! Ice cream for breakfast!

I was the only ice cream customer. The scooper people were still tying on their aprons. I decided to give them a chance to get ready, so I watched the Cone Man making the day's waffle cones. Look closely and you can see the scoopergirl heading toward me with my second black walnut cone of the trip.

WaffleMan was pouring waffle batter into the irons when I snuck up on him.


I chatted him up (another of Dad's genes that I seem to have happily inherited) and learned that the waffle batter comes powdered from another Ohio institution, Graeter's in Columbus. Oh, good. No wonder those cones were so delectable. And fresh!

He'd take the newly baked waffle from its griddle while it was still floppy and pliable


roll it onto a forming cone

let it cool for a little bit on the metal cone,

and then remove it and place it in a rack to crisp up.

They are just perfect, not crackly crumbly; just chewy enough to stay together, ever so slightly salty, and suffused with vanilla extract. He makes about 6-700 cones a day in high summer.

Mine was Number One.