Trio Gelato & Desserts

We did it!! April 30, 2007

Finally, finally, finally, Trio has been inspected by the Department of Hotels and Restaurants and we passed with flying colors! Our lovely inspector was impressed with our little shop and we only have a few changes to make before they inspect the place again in 90 days. She even pulled out a printer and printed out our license right then and there.

So that’s the good news…

The bad news is that the City of Orlando is holding us up just a little bit longer. However, we are working on it and hope to have that under control by next week. The red tape is getting a bit old, I have to be honest. We just want to make and, more importantly, SELL some gelato!

Melanie is busy working on a real website for us. It should be up and running before long. We’ll still link to this blog on our website, but the new one will be much more professional and informative. Speaking of Melanie, happy late birthday to you!

p.s. A new use for our sorbetto…I made margaritas and here is my recipe adapted from Martha Stewart Living Magazine (it’s a little too strong…I’ll warn you now)

Blend then serve:

3/4 cup Tequila, 1/4 cup Grand Marnier, 2 cups ice, 1 cup lemon or strawberry sorbetto

Yum.

Gelato Photo-test #2 April 21, 2007

We gave sorrbetto a try this week, to start nail down our basic recipes. We figured that the two most important fruit flavors (which just so happen to be my very favorite) are strawberry & lemon. We also tried a batch of green apple, which won’t be pictured here. It looked a bit like applesauce. Our second batch of green apple also wasn’t perfect, but at least it looked kinda green (it’s in the back of the tri-colored cup photo below).

So, here’s what we came up with this time. They turned out amazingly creamy for not containing any milk, and… ooh boy, so tart and tasty.

Grand Opening! April 11, 2007

Mark your calendars now for our Grand Opening Celebration on May 19, 2007!

We’ll be selling gelato before that date and will announce a soft opening date very soon. Stay tuned for details!

Gelato Photo-test #1

We made a few delicious batches of gelato this past weekend, and our friend Julius came by to take some photos for our website and catalog (both in the works). We discovered, over the course of the afternoon, that gelato is a bit of a temperamental model — “temp” being the most important portion of that word. Frozen stuff doesn’t like to stay frozen very long outside of its comfy freezer environment! Regardless, I think we captured a few good pictures from this go-around, and next time we’ll be a little wiser about the process… I’ll let the photos speak for themselves. (Everytime I look at them they say to me, “Eat me. I’m really really good.”)

Excellent News!! April 9, 2007

This morning I spoke with a representative from the Florida Department of Hotels and Restaurants, who said that our shop’s plans are going to officially be “approved” today! This means that within a week or so, we should be able to schedule our opening inspection so that we can legally operate as a food service business!

The hurdle of the plan approval process was really our biggest worry. We still have some city and county occupational licensing to take care of, but they don’t have any requirements beyond state approval and a check in their hands.

In other news, we have a much better situation for transporting our wares now:

The “world’s largest cooler” is dwarfed by the carrying capacity of our “ice cream truck”…

We’ll hopefully be filling up that van to its capacity soon with pans to carry all around this town!