The Gelato Blog

The love of gelato came with an epiphany. A summer afternoon in Rome, with my first wife. She was so young and beautiful, and we were in our twenties and madly in love. We visited Rome, Florence, Bologna and Venice on that trip. We had a vague idea of what Gelato meant and when we walked into Giolittli’s, Rome’s oldest Gelateria, open since 1890, with about 50 flavours, and put the first taste in our mouths, we were transfixed.

Profound flavours, cioccolato and fragola, chocolate and strawberry, deep, intense, creamy, refreshing on a Roman summer day. Our own Madeleine, as Marcel Proust took a bite out of that classic French cookie and set out on a task to remember his past as this would stay with us for a lifetime.

When we returned home, the petite 105 lb. Susan said to a friend, “You won’t believe it, but we had ice cream every single day.” I never thought she was more beautiful than those days in Rome. 

Fast forward to the present. I loved gelato so much I threatened to buy myself a machine and make it myself. Then one birthday, my kids bought one for me, and that sent me off on an adventure that persists to this day. An adventure of taste, colour, sensuality and flavour and I got really good at it, realizing how to change and approve recipes, even ones from the likes of two disgraces: Mario Batali and Martha Stewart. Everyone loves what I make and of course urges me to go into the business and so far I’ve resisted, though I do think of doing limited per order catering. But a blog is a different matter; I can put my heart into that. 

It’s called gelato is life because Gelato is: 

More than a desert; it’s a way of life

It expresses magical chemistry: the mysterious alchemy of milk, cream, sugar, egg yolks, and flavours is so much more than 1+1 = 3. It’s more like 1+1 = 10. 

It is a transformation of basic materials, common substances into something ethereal and above and beyond. 

This blog will be more about more than gelato but there will also be recipes, news stories about those in the community and about ingredients. Enjoy! 

About US

Ricardo, a foodie, home chef, and gelato enthuiast, also known as ChefRichardTO, is the author of How to Be a Better Online Writer Overnight, also available on Amazon, and maintains a blog about improving PR writing at the thePRwriter.com. An amateur linguist, thanks to DuoLingo, my love of writing and language came from a background in journalism and PR at major agencies. I also teach PR writing at Toronto Metropolitan University, formerly Ryerson, and for nearly a decade I was a PR and writing prof at Humber College and the University of Guelph Humber. If nothing else, you will hopefully read some good writing and maybe learn something about it, along with gelato experiences. I plan to cast a wide net and take the gelato beat into new territory. 

Ricardo, do you cater?

Well yes and no. My gelatos have earned a certain kind of notoriety in my circle. Everybody always asks if “I am going into the business?” No, I’m not. There is a large gulf between a talented home gelato maker and creating a retail business. Carpigiani machines from Italy — $100,000 — a location, licenses, cleanliness certifications, rent, etc. Not for me. But I do imagine that I could deliver pints and quarts to selected dinner parties. I’ve done that already. That could be a business. Send a note to ricardo@ricardosgelato.com if that intrigues you.