Day 2 – Sticky Buns for Breakfast, Ice Cream for Lunch

For a town of its size, State College (also known as Happy Valley) is lucky enough to have at least 2 destination culinary landmarks.  Located in the Food Sciences building and open continuously since the late 1800’s, the Penn State Creamery has been providing central Pennsylvania with enough milk, cheese and Ice Cream to fill Beaver Stadium to the brim.  A combination retail store and training facility, it’s quite simply the most famous program for the study of Ice Cream production in the country.  As an example, both Ben and Jerry are graduates of the Penn State ice cream program — more popularly known as Agriculture 5150.

It seems that, due to popularity, the Penn State creamery has recently moved into a new larger store.  That’s probably a good thing, as I’m sure they serve up tens of thousands of scoops of Ice Cream on a football Saturday.  And I’m not talking a regular-sized scoop.  In fact, a scoop of Ice Cream is so large that it is only matched in shear enormity by the mass delusion of Penn State football fans.

Clean and bright, friendly and affordable, the Creamery features standards like Vanilla and Butter Pecan, more exotic flavors like Bittersweet Mint and Peanut Butter Swirl, and the Moby Dick to my Ahab — the Peachy Paterno. 

I’ve got to admit that after hearing about this Ice Cream from Penn State alums, it was a little disappointing. The Peachy Paterno is good, but doesn’t really taste like Peaches. It’s basically a premium Vanilla Ice Cream with standard sliced, frozen peaches studding the Ice Cream. Don’t get me wrong — this is world-class Ice Cream — better than you can get at any store in the country.  But, it’s probably not as good, or as creative as the Cornell Dairy.  But, more importantly, now that I’ve tried both the Peachy Paterno and the Sticky Buns, I never have to go back to Happy Valley, unless its to watch the semi-annual beatdown that the Ohio State football team gives the Nittany Lions.

Day 2 – Stranger in a Strange Land

State College, PA is a small quiet college town.  For an outsider (in more ways than one) on a Sunday afternoon, there’s not really much to do. 

 

Locals, it seems, tend to spend their free time sitting around and apologize for the recent history of Penn State football, making excuses for Joe Paterno, developing conspiracy theories about why Terrelle Pryor won’t come to Penn State, and rationalizing why Penn State would have been better off if it hadn’t joined the Big 10 (they could have preserved those great rivalries with has-beens like Syracuse, Pitt and Temple).  While wacky conspiracy theories are endlessly entertaining.  I was here for a higher purpose …  

 

… you see, always open Ye Olde College Diner is one of the pantheons of college football pre- and post-game food destinations.  An unassuming place – I drove right by it even though the Centre county convention and visitors bureau had given me directions – Ye Olde College Diner remains one of those places that every football fan needs to go to at least once in their life.  Because although the food is merely standard average middling diner fare, the place has one unique food item on the menu – freshly made Cinnamon sticky buns grilled on an open flat top grill and served hot with ice cold Vanilla ice cream.   

 

The service at Ye Olde College Diner is marginal — I had to remind my waitress 3 times that I ordered well-done bacon and she passed me no less than 10 times before asking if I wanted some coffee while I waited for my order.  I reminded her — keep in mind she was the only waitress in the restaurant — that I hadn’t placed my food order.   

  

So as I mentioned, the food ultimately is average — when my “well done” bacon finally arrived it was as fatty and appetizing as the corpse of the late Dom DeLouise.    

 

But, I have to admit, the idea and the execution of ordering grilled sticky buns a la mode for breakfast, is pure genius.    

 

I could totally see myself stopping on the way back to the dorms after a night of drinking to order some sticky buns to help absorb the alcohol.  I could also see myself gaining 50 pounds and developing type-2 diabetes if I went to school there.  But, i’ve heard that Penn State has a really good Med School based in Hershey, PA — which has receveived tens of millions of dollars from the Hershey foundation — so I’m sure if there’s a Med School that specializes in sugar-induced dietary ailments, the good people of State College would receive nothing but the best care.  But, luckily for my heart surgeon, my dietician, my weight trainer, my strength and conditioning coach, my speed coach, my parole officer and my personal assistant, I was onto other culinary destinations.