Every summer, for nearly a decade, my partner and I would travel to Prince Edward County, and stay in a cottage on Adolphus Reach, east of Picton, Ontario. It was far from the main road, , down a hill, situated on a bluff perfectly positioned to watch the sunset over the water, as it the orange circle descended behind the land on the other side. We brought our dogs, who enjoyed the water in the Reach, and biked all over the hills and roads in this eastern part of the County, as it’s now referred to, appropriating the name County to itself. It was wonderfully idyllic but ended when we decided to skip a summer and visit Newfoundland, which included a truly memorable trip to the Fogo Island Inn. And then the cottage was sold. 

There are three main County towns: Picton, the area’s hub, and Wellington and Bloomfield. Milford, something of an afterthought, has yet to be significantly developed, though some excellent wineries, like the prize-winning Exultet Estates, one of our faves, is nearby. When Chris Pengelly owned the Milford Bistro, it was a destination and the source of my first pleasant memories of the good life in the County (Chris introduced us to Exultet, for example) but it hasn’t been the same since he left and became a wine tour guide. The County’s wines are flavourful and steadily gaining in status; more on that later, someday, as there are some very committed vintners. 

Along the way, we discovered Bloomfield’s Slickers Ice Cream shop. Just an ordinary  sunny summer day, looking for a cool, refreshing ice cream cone. If Gelato in Rome or Milan was a life-changing revelation, so was Slickers – in the form of one flavour: Campfire Cream. Everyone has at one time, or another has tasted burnt marshmallows from a campfire. The combination of pure sugar sweetness and woodsmoke and burnt coating, preferably on a stick gathered from the forest. Our kids, especially, spent summers at camp in Northern Ontario and this was their happy place, only in the form of ice cream. As one TripAdvisor reviewer commented: 

“Amazing, unbelievable flavour! The smell and flavour of charred, smoothly heated marshmallows is right in this ice cream! Soooooo tasty. Sooooo delicious!!”

Time in the County always meant a stop at Slickers, sitting outdoors along the Loyalist Parkway, the main drag in Bloomfield, and enjoying our cones. Although I preferred Slickers’ rhubarb and ginger flavour, my family had gone gaga for Campfire. At the end of our trip, we’d order several quarts and bring them home in a cooler, where they would disappear in record time as it was parcelled out to various family members. Peter Pesic and Ann Kitzler had started Slickers some years ago, with some retail but no scoop shop experience. Peter was retired from an art poster business; not exactly a logical step to ice cream but they were determined to create some of the most memorable flavours, and they did. Another one I love is the apple pie, made with actual pies and fresh-baked apples. There are 70 flavours in all, with 20 or so served at one time, with seven different types of chocolate including chocolate peanut butter dream, with PB and Reese’s. Excellent sorbets include blood orange and pomegranate. There is also now a second store in Picton.  

One fine, warm summer day, sitting outside Slickers with our cones, we encountered Pesic and praised the Campfire and asked, “How did you do this?” 

“Plenty of trial and error,” he said. “It took a very long time.” 

With that, I assumed that only an expert, steeped in frozen dessert making could have achieved that feat and filed it away under ‘things I’d love to figure out someday.’

Slickers isn’t alone in the County ice cream game. Gelato does seem to be somewhat short supply but during the season, one of the great coffee shops of all time, Picton’s Bean Counter café, serves an excellent selection, along with sandwiches and pastries. A nice place to sit, too, along the main street. In Wellington, the Old Greenhouse features flavoured soft serve scoops, an interesting concept. This is by no means an exhaustive list as no doubt there will be other County shops, as the Gelato trend, with its lower butterfat, might supplant ice cream. Who knows? 

Once I got into gelato making, I learned something about marshmallow or campfire gelato: it doesn’t take a laboratory like Nathan Myrhvold, ex Microsoft CTO, made for his adventures in molecular gastronomy. In fact, my first batch was pretty good and the second ‘nailed it,’ as my group of family tasters acknowledged. I am going to share my campfire recipe with you (see recipe page), and take away the mystery of it all. It isn’t such a big secret to produce it correctly, with the burnt marshmallow flvaour, after all.