Fruit Pops, Ice Cream and Some Liquid Nitrogen

Summer in New York City is not my favorite time: Too hot, too crowded and not enough shade. Making the heat a bit more bearable as I stroll around with Gianna are the many ice cream, smoothie and frozen fruit pop places cropping up in different parts of the city to send some coolness our way. In the past few weeks, she and I have been making time for some frozen gastronomy, indulging on fruit pops with ingredient profiles straight from Italy, fruity frozen yogurt with soft balls of chewy mochi, healthful smoothies made with almond milk, and even ice cream made by way of molecular biology.

Here are some of our favorite places around New York:

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Pinkberry (pinkberry.com; various locations): As a diehard yogurt fan, Gianna has a true affection for Pinkberry original. She devours the tangy frozen yogurt that she calls ‘the plain flavor’ with a side of chewy mochi.

Popbar (pop-bar.com): Located on Carmine Street in the West Village, Popbar hails from Torino, Italy, as do all the ingredients in its Manhattan location. Customers can choose from frozen gelato, sorbetto or yogurt on stick—and can watch the pops being made daily by popologists. The products are kosher, all natural and gluten- and preservative-free. Basic flavors like Strawberry, Peach, Chocolate or Coconut, can be dipped into dark, milk or white chocolate and covered with crushed almonds or pistachios or biscotti crumbs and even coffee grains. We like to share a peach dipped in chocolate and an original strawberry.

GROM (grom.it): Also originating in Torino, Italy, this gelateria (which has one location right across the street from Popbar) offers high-end gelato, fruit sorbets and granita (ices) with distinct Italian ingredients. Torroncino, with nougat from Piedmont, is our favorite.

Lulu & Mooky: This Lower East Side shop offers ice cream made with liquid nitrogen. Customers can create more than 10,000 flavor combinations, which will be prepared right before their eyes. Once the icy cool smoke cleared from the counter, my burnt sugar, honey almond ice cream appeared. Gianna, more of a purist, stuck with vanilla. Lulu & Mooky has no phone or website; try to visit the 129 Allen St. location on a hot sunny day, after 2 p.m.

Xoom Juice: (xoomjuice.com) The East Village location of Tuscon, Ariz.-based Xoom Juice offers healthful juice and milk smoothies in eco-friendly containers. Xoom specializes in alternative milk options like soy and almond and even offers hemp granola in some of its drinks. It has a kids’ menu, but children can also build their own creations. Our favorite: Almond Chai smoothie made with almond milk.

Stogo (stogonyc.com): This company’s cool flavors of organic and dairy-free ice cream—like creamsicle or Mexican spiced chocolate—are made with either a soy or coconut milk base, in addition to a hemp base. Gianna was a fan of the banana (coconut-based and very ‘bannana-y”) while I loved the soy-based pomegranate chocolate chip. We are going back to try the salted caramel pecan.

That’s just a sampling of some of our favorite places; we still haven’t gotten to many of the new cool summer treat shops that have opened. Next on the list are: People’s Pops in Chelsea Market, which offers shave ice and popcicles. We want to try the Strawberry Basil ice pops; peoplespops.com; Cones on Bleecker Street for Argentine-style ice cream like dulce de leche; 212.414.1795; and Sundaes and Cones for Black Sesame or Corn ice cream; sundaescones.com.

And when rainy days hamper our exploring, we try to make our own sweet and sour icy treats. Gianna is a huge fan of lemonade (and, thus, I have a surplus of lemons in the fridge) so we gave lemon ice pops a try. (See recipe below). To cut the sourness, we added a bit of orange juice. Plus, to satisfy my own cravings, we made some with grapefruit juice. They were a big hit, but take note, we both wished they would freeze more quickly than they did!