Friends and Followers:
The grass-strewn soils of our country’s pastureland seems to buttress skies the color of robin’s eggs with lustrous beams of shed sunlight. The dome of the heavens is sodden with fulvous strands of illuminating warmth. Yes, the azure atmosphere is as full with birdsong as it is with day. The month of June is here, and the ascent of summertime demands the genuflection and fluid course of dance-path from e’ery living creature. We should alert you that we have begun to keep a contained beehive on the roof space of our beloved and historic confectionery. These buzzing insects are kindly and harmless, they have no vendetta against humankind and their stingers remain within their abdominal sheaths. These yellow-striped hivemates produce auric nectar from within their hexagonal domiciles, and we will use their sticky honey to sweeten our homemade products so that you may enjoy sweetness in its most direct sense.
For those who follow the indication of agricultural almanacs, you shall be thusly informed that strawberry season has arrived to our bandwidth of countryside. We have taken advantage of this fact to its fullest possibility– we will be offering Fresh Cold Strawberry Lemonade to our arrived clientele using brilliant vine-picked fruits.
On a related note, we suggest that you have one of our other cool treats prepared annually at this time using ripe fruit. These include our family of Summer Ices: Organic Lemon, Raspberry,Mango, and soon Mast Brother’s Chocolate Sorbet!
Another item that will be making its yearly return inside of this calendar month is Mulberry Ice Cream. Our national forefather Benjamin Franklin used to grow Mulberry trees– he was fascinated by their botany and he enjoyed the taste of its succulent fruit. To honor his gustatory inclination, we have prepared a delicious and creamy dessert using this indigenous berry. We suggest its usage in a Mixed Berry Shrub beverage.
For those whose physiology cannot stomach or digest the lactose protein, we suggest some alternative desserts which we have prepared with special care and consideration. Take, for example, our coconut-cream based chocolate ice cream, or our similarly constructed Salted Caramel Ice Cream, or our soy-based Mint Chocolate Chip Ice cream! All are in obedience with the dietary construction of the Vegan ethos, all contain no potentially harmful lactose protein strands for those unfortunates whose alimentary flesh bears hypersensitivity, and each flavor abides by the proscribed laws of Kashrut in accordance with the more lenient schools of Judaic thought. So please, we encourage you to taste some of these aforementioned products, whether you belong to the category of persons who would favor such a dessert because of dietary restriction or moral obligation or not.
We should also insert a quick mention that the benevolent folks at Preservation Alliance have bestowed us with their award for our tedious and back-breaking work in the restoration of Shane Confectionery. This group of experts and historians have dignified the difficult labour of our research historians, creative direction team, and assorted craftsmen and contractors to bring the oldest candy store in the nation to its fullest glory. We feel honored, and issue the society our reciprocal thanks. The Award Ceremony was held in May at the Crystal Tea Room at the Wanamaker Building before an audience of 600 attendees.
Let us transition from speaking of elevated occasions to its manifest opposite– garbage. Since times long since past- the restaurant business as a whole has scratched their heads in thinking about how to cleanly, neatly, and effectively deal with the remainder of their food scraps. Within the past few years, there has been a revolution in thought as to how to responsibly and “green-ly” deal with their refuse. As of now, compostable systems have been implemented at both The Franklin Fountain and Shane Confectionery by the Philadelphia Compost Company, so that the wretched waste left at the bottom of bowls may once more become the food-stuff of flowerbeds, as is the divine cycle of our inter-woven universe. 90% Our trash and food waste ALL goes to Pottstown where it is broken down, separated, recycled (if necessary like plastics and glass) and composted for use as commercial landscaping material once again! We ask that you be so conscientious as to place your used glass bottles, plastic-ware that you may have on your person in marked recycling bins. The city government is subsidizing all recycling efforts. Please be informed that all food waste will be composted into fecund soils.
We have some news about our latest Shane Confectionery output that we would like to share with pronounced enthusiasm: we shall now be making our own line of fudge! Yes, we will be firing up our newly cleaned and refurbished Savage Brothers Fire Mixer dating back to 1919 in order to mix our specialty chocolate into a uniform and creamy consistency. We hope to bring a bit of the taste and atmosphere of the boardwalks of our country’s beaches to the banks of the rolling Delaware. Keep in mind, we will also be selling boxes of period-authentic Salt Water Taffy, which comes in myriad flavors.
One final note before we close– on May 21st we hosted an annual open house meeting of the esteemed and historic Retail Confectioners’ Association. The Philadelphia candy brass were all in attendance, and we wish to issue them our thanks for arriving and for their continued contributions to the confectionery craft.
Well, that’s about all this go around. We hope that the boundless breath of early summertime enlivens your heart, and that you may prosper without measure throughout this warm season.
With Heated Hearts,
The Berley Brothers and Staff