by Andrew Alonzo | aalonzo@claremont-courier.com

This past Sunday, Sebastian Grannis and Saul Harper from Bert and Rocky’s Cream Company found themselves serving about 150 triple scoops made from native plants at California Botanic Garden’s Freeze Wild 2023 event at Lewis Family Forest Pavilion.

Flavors included chocolate orange and California bay laurel, woolly bluecurls and cream with honey, and Mexican elderflower and lemon sorbet.

The limited edition flavors are available online until the end of July at calbg.org. Pints are $65, $55 for CalBG members. They come with recipe cards so folks can make their own, and an invitation to an online course set for Sunday, August 6 from 3 to 4 p.m. on the culinary and natural importance of California plants.

Proceeds will fund educational programming at CalBG.

“The flavors mostly actually came from our staff here at California Botanic Garden thinking about the native plant flavors that we like to taste,” said CalBG’s Lauren Weintraub Stoebel, assistant director of visitor experience.

The Freeze Wild concept was borne out of Covid, Stoebel said.

“Before my time at the garden, some of the previous visitor experience staff wanted to get more into promoting native plants and how wonderful they are for cooking,” she said. “A lot of them are great for desserts or savory dishes, so they created a series of programming, Taste Wild and Freeze Wild.”

For more information, visit calbg.org/event/freeze-wild-take-home-boxes.

Ice cream made from native plants was part of California Botanic Garden’s Freeze Wild 2023 event. Courier photo/Andrew Alonzo