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You’d think this broiling heat wave would boost the business at the summer ice-cream and concrete/custard shacks that dot the area, and to some extent, it does. And yet, explained Deirdre “Dede” Cordie, when the temperature busts angrily through the top of the thermometer to 100 degrees and beyond, people tend to stay in their air-conditioned homes and remain inert like the lions of the Serengeti, immobile at midday.
Cordie, the co-owner of Belleville’s venerable White Cottage ice-cream stand, added that when the sun sets and the oven of the outdoors cools off a touch, people begin to creep forth in greater numbers to her family business. In fact, the evenings, she said, are often jammed at the Cottage, and when it’s “only” 85 or 90 degrees at the peak of the summer day’s heat, the place is often chock full of customers all day long.
A trip to the White Cottage makes everything clear, and illuminates why the Cordies “un-retired” and came back to a business they sold after a 23-year run to start their second go-round.
One of the current big sellers is the watermelon sherbet. It’s super- refreshing, and quite possibly medicinal -- it seems to help fight the heat. It’s made, as all are the ice creams at the Cottage, on the premises, with liberal doses of the fruit in the flavor’s name: banana ice cream starts with bananas, cherry with cherries, etc. “It’s all made the simple way,” said Dede’s son Chris Cordie (below), who toils with his parents behind the counter most every day.
Amongst their 70 rotating flavors (with about 30 available each day, some listed below), the Cottage carries the usual suspects, like mint chip, butter pecan, Oreo cookie, and rocky road. The slightly more unusual ice-cream flavors include peanut butter, black raspberry, lemon custard, Almond Joy, fudge, cheesecake, strawberry pie, cinnamon, apple strudel, German chocolate, Snickers, orange/pineapple, raspberry truffle, caramel macchiato, and the “Superman” flavor, which has a “secret identity” (they will only say that it’s red, blue, and yellow).
I adored the Cherry Garden ice cream. It was super-creamy, with a rich cherry flavor, and was an absolute treat on a blistering Belleville afternoon in this punishing July sweat-bath.
A dry-erase board near the business’s front door invites diners to “recommend a new flavor.” Suggestions, reported Chris, have included “fish” and “prune.” They once took one of the customers up on his idea and actually made creamed-corn flavor ice cream. “It mainly tasted like vanilla,” claimed Chris, and the experiment was mercifully allowed to pass unheralded into the night.
Specialty sundaes include the hot-fudge waffle sandwich (at left), which consists of a hot waffle fresh from the waffle press, two scoops of your chosen flavors, a second waffle, a deluge of hot fudge and real whipped cream, toasted pecan pieces, and a cherry on top. It’s easily enough for two people, who will finish it with moans and similar grunts of animal pleasure. It is served with a fork, knife, and spoon, explained Chris, in anticipation of the request for all possible utensils. Indeed, they all proved intrinsic to the face-stuffing process.
The Cordies are serious about the ice-cream toppings, too. They roast and salt pecans, make their own praline topping, and cut fresh fruit daily.
They also whip up floats, malts, shakes, freezes, house-made drumsticks, ice-cream sandwiches, the locally ubiquitous concrete (theirs is custard-free), and, for noteworthy occasions, entire ice cream pies. They offer frozen yogurt, sherbet, and 15 different house-made sugar-free ice creams.
One or two of their creations are obscene mountains of ice cream that land on the table with a thud and a wow. If you’re not squeamish about sharing with pals eating from the same bucket of dessert, have a big appetite, and are willing to order a dish called “the Pig Trough,” you can go all the way to freakytown with your like-minded buds. The Pig Trough has 15 scoops of ice cream, five toppings, whipped cream, chocolate flakes, a cherry, and, oh yeah, a Twinkie. It weighs six pounds, costs $29.99, and the Cottage sells about two of them per week, said Chris.
(Note that the Pig Trough is not one of those notorious restaurant challenges. If you want to finish it in a half-hour by yourself, the saints be with you, my child, but you won’t win a prize for doing so.)
The tiny bungalow serves up a surprising array of lunch and dinner food, too. The quarter-pound Cottage Burger is a loosely packed patty (a la Steak ‘n Shake) dressed with Swiss cheese, bacon, white onion, pickle, lettuce, and tomato. Like everything else at White Cottage, it’s as fresh as can be, and mopping the juice from your face during consumption makes for a happy interlude. Other food-food includes pulled pork sandwiches, Philly cheese steaks, chili dogs, corn dogs, fries, onion rings, Tater Tots, fried pickles, and house-made potato chips. Cod, catfish, tilapia and cod plates are available during Lent and, with slightly less piety, on all the other days of the year, too.
The White Cottage has been around since 1947. The Cordies bought it in ’77, and, with their dedication to fresh ingredients and real food, kept a great thing going ‘til 2001. Then, they accepted an offer to sell, got around to officially retiring in ’04, and watched two new owners cut corners and drive business away until the place went into foreclosure, said Chris. In 2009 the bank called and asked the Cordie family if they would consider buying the place back, and in the midst of the recession, Tom and Dede took the helm once again. Now, the couple, their children, their in-laws, and their employees scurry about behind the counter for hours every day (until 10:30 p.m. in the summer, in fact), March through September.
Everybody scoops and scoops (except for Tom, who grills and grills), and the lines at the walk-up window and the counter keep moving, and one of the bi-state area’s best ice-cream stands keeps doing it right – in its second act.
White Cottage 102 Lebanon Belleville 618-234-1120 whitecottageicecream.com
Above: Tom and DeDe Cordie, with daughter-in-law Michelle Cordie, and son Chris.
