Notable Edibles

Nicey Treat offers cool lick on a stick

Jeff Patrick sells popsicles with a smile. Photo by Helen Workman.

Cool customers are keeping their eyes peeled for Nicey Treat, one of Indy’s newest mobile food operations. This isn’t any old truck: Owner Jeff Patrick peddles—and pedals—his frozen fruit and dairy pops with a bike-pulled freezer cart.

Nicey Treat is the first foray into food service for Patrick, a videographer by trade. He says making freezer pops from wholesome ingredients (organic and locally sourced whenever possible) seemed a natural fit.

“My grandfather was in the dairy business in Seymour, and when my brothers and I would go visit him, the first thing we’d always do was raid his freezer for fudgsicles, popsicles and creamsicles,” Patrick says.

When Patrick was in Mexico a few years ago, a taste of paletas (icy fruit pops) brought those childhood memories flooding back, and the inspiration for Nicey Treat was born. Patrick has put a modern stamp on the traditional popsicles of his youth with his own creative flavor combinations like strawberry mint, blueberry buttermilk, pineapple basil, creamy avocado, not-so-hot chocolate and the Arnie P. (a blend of lemonade and black tea).

Patrick’s all set to sell pops at summertime events like Zoobilation, and also hopes to make regular appearances in White River State Park.

Check niceytreat.com or Twitter (@niceytreat) for an up-todate schedule and locations.

—Amy Lynch

Closing the beer-and-beef cycle

Sometimes a beer and a burger are the perfect combo for a warm summer night out on the patio. So what happens when the burger is the beer?

That’s the general idea behind a partnership between Sun King Brewing and a small family farm up in Thorntown. Beer Barrel Beef raises its pharmaceutical-free cattle on shady pastures for direct-to-consumer sales. But along with being pasture-raised, these lucky cows get to munch on Sun King’s mash—the stuff left over after the brewing process.

Two to three times a week, farm owner Judi Thomas-Sheerer heads to Sun King to pick up the mash and deliver beef. And the cycle continues.

“We call it cow candy,” Thomas-Sheerer says. “Our girls love it, and it helps them have lots of rich milk to feed their calves.”

The beer mash adds something delicious to the beef, ThomasSheerer says. Sun King wins, too.

“We try for the most sustainable practices possible here,” says owner Clay Robinson. “The ability for spent grain to be utilized by local farmers is fantastic.”

Find Beer Barrel Beef on Facebook and localharvest.org.

Details: 8511 N. 200 W., Thorntown; 765-516-2194.

—Chris Collins

Book to offer Indiana smorgasbord

Clear your coffee table for a book that will make your kitchen table jealous.

Food for Thought: An Indiana Harvest, due in

August, is a collection of first-person essays from more than 60 farmers, restaurateurs and others who are a part of our state’s food scene. Food in Indiana has never been better, the book says.

Essayists include Regina Mehallick of R Bistro in Indianapolis; Jesus Alvarez, a Mexican immigrant known as “the pierogi king” of Whiting; Aster Bekele, who reaches out to disadvantaged kids with her urban garden in Indianapolis; and Judy Schad of Capriole Farmstead Goat Cheeses in Greenville.

Initially, the book will be sold inside the DuPont Food Pavilion at the Indiana State Fair, where the author, photographer and story subjects will sign copies daily. The book will be available online, too (indianahumanities.org).

The 250-page paperback ($24.95; IBJ Book Publishing) is a collaboration between Indianapolis writer David Hoppe and photographer Kristin Hess, who works on the communications team at Indiana Humanities. Hess traveled throughout the state with the Food for Thought program, an interactive exhibit about Indiana food culture that wrapped up last year. (Hess wrote about her experience crisscrossing the state for food in the Fall 2011 issue of Edible Indy. Read her essay at edibleindy.com.)

The stories of people Hess met along the way are served up in this book.

“This is the legacy piece of the Food for Thought program,” Hess says. “It’s not meant to be a road trip guide to Indiana— though it could be. It’s about getting to know people and what motivates them to do these amazing things.

“It’ll feel like you’ve made friends after you read it.”

Food for Thought includes an essay from Becky Hostetter of Indy's Duos Food Truck.

—Erica Sagon

Photo by Kristin Hess

Local food finds a home at the fair

Fair food is getting a local focus at the 2012 Indiana State Fair with the addition of the DuPont Food Pavilion.

Created to showcase and celebrate Indiana food and those who grow it, produce it and prepare it, the pavilion will feature a market, a state-of-the-art demonstration kitchen and a Purdue University–run interactive exhibit focusing on health and wellness and telling Indiana’s food story from farm to fork.

Local chefs will give daily cooking demonstrations on the hour, and fairgoers can interact with food artisans while sampling locally made goodies. Food enthusiasts will find the pavilion market well stocked with tasty products all made within Indiana borders.

Keep an eye out for homemade salsas, jellies and jams from Two Cookin’ Sisters of Brookston; all-natural, vegan and glutenfree Bloody Mary mix from Indy’s Hoosier Momma; stoneground mustard and pasta sauce from LocalFolks Foods of Sheridan; and slow smoked meats from Indianapolis-based Judge’s Tip of the Rib Bar-B-Que.

The Indiana State Fair runs Aug. 3–19.

Details:indianastatefair.com

—Marcia Ellett