Not your parents’ ice pop
Art can come in many forms, including an ice pop.
Those who doubt that assertion should rein in their skepticism long enough to try a paleta, (which is a Mexican term for an ice pop) made at Zora Dora”™s on Main Street in Beacon.
“People are really catching on to it,” said Steven Astorino, proprietor and ice-pop maker of Zora Dora”™s. “I think people are really into the all-naturalness and the local ingredients we use.”
Astorino graduated from the Culinary Institute of America and worked for several years as a chef and pastry chef, before landing a government job. But he found that his new employer left a creative void that required the creation of delicious treats to fill.
He has been in the dessert business seven years now. It started by marketing microbatch gourmet ice creams to area restaurants. “Everything is made to order,” he said. “Basically, we make it when you call to say you need it. We don”™t stock anything in big freezers, so it”™s fresher, the flavors are more vibrant. It”™s a higher quality product than something sitting around in a freezer for three months waiting for an order to get called in.”
The ice cream is made with organic milk from a Dutchess County farm and uses fruits from local orchards and berry patches. The ice cream is seasonal, so that when strawberries are ripe, batches of strawberry ice cream are featured.
In 2005, on a trip to Mexico, he discovered paletas. “A light went off in my head and a store was born, as a kind of creative outlet hobby if you will,” Astorino said. He has since created more than 200 varieties of ice pops, using fruit and natural ingredients. At any one time about 35 flavors are available at the Zora Dora”™s store in Beacon.
The pops are also available from a cart at the east end of the Walkway over the Hudson, at Dia Beacon and at the Downing Film Center in Newburgh. He said he is picky about where he sells his product. “I always entertain a new business venture that comes my way for the popsicles but small classy venues are my style,” Astorino said.
Like any wise artist, he thanked his backers, saying, “I couldn”™t do it without my wife, Linda,” and also cited Overlook Farms in the town of Newburgh and Four Winds Farm in Gardiner for ingredients.
Sales are up, he said, from a total of 17,000 ice pops sold in 2009 to over 25,000 sold this year. “It”™s going pretty good but I really don”™t do it for the money,” Astorino said. “It”™s a personal creativity outlet. As long as the store pays the bills for itself, that”™s my thing.”