No debate: there’s no better, or more appropriate, place to celebrate the birth of our nation than right here in Philly. Here are a few things to help you enjoy your freedom this weekend. The best part? Most of it’s free. Today: Forget lunch, there’s cake! A reading of the Declaration of Independence is followed by an eight foot cake that’s needs some eating. Head over to the Independence Visitor Center at noon to snag......

Okay, so the low temperatures this week might still be a little wintry, but, during the day at least, the sun will be shining and we can finally put away our scarves and gloves. And eat ice cream. Or gelato. Or water ice. So, this week's Foodsday Tuesday comes to you in the form of a question: When the temperatures start to rise, where do you go to cool down? Does the Franklin Fountain's old-fashioned......

A tall, icy glass of our favorite internet junk, just for you. WHYY is getting together with Bassetts Ice Cream to create a new ice cream flavor, but they're asking YOU to help. The question is, if WHYY were ice cream, what would it taste like? Submit your ideas for a new flavor based on WHYY to icecream@whyy.org. The only guidelines for the contest are that flavors be developed around chocolate and vanilla. Also, all......

It’s almost that time again folks: Compulsory Love Day is next Thursday, so it’s time to stock up on the champagne, chocolates, and condoms. That is, if you have a partner. If not, tradition dictates you sit at home alone, preferably in a battered bathrobe, and eat a quart of ice cream out of the container. If you’re feeling somewhere in the middle of the champagne/battered bathrobe spectrum, here are some ideas to keep you......

by Debbie Foster Trying new restaurants is something that my husband and I love to do, so when I saw that a new Thai restaurant had opened up in our neighborhood, I co-opted my husband, parents, sister and son to go and try it out. My official opinion: yummy, yummy, more, more. Kao Tip, located in NE Philadelphia (on Cottman Avenue just off of Frankford avenue) is an encouraging addition to the culinary palate of......

When the weather outside is frightful, thoughts may not immediately turn to the contents of the freezer. Phillyist thinks this is a major oversight: what about ice cream and warm pie? Hot fudge sundaes? (Do you see where we’re going with this?) The folks at Turkey Hill are set to help you mend your misguided snacking ways with their 12 Days of Ice Cream, which starts today and runs through December 25. Every day will......

What's new and/or interesting in Philly theaters this weekend. I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With - Jeff Garlin plays a rather pathetic Chicago actor who lives with his mother, and who, in the opening scenes of the film, gets dumped by his girlfriend, loses a part to Aaron Carter, and leaves an Overeaters Anonymous meeting to go to an ice cream parlor. When he falls for a girl there (Sarah Silverman), it could mean......

I may have slammed the sushi at Reading Terminal Market, but RTM is actually just about my favorite place to grab lunch in Center City. The possibilities are endless: last week, Ross and I had some pretty yummy crepes at Profi's Creperie; yesterday, we split a tasty panini at Mezze. You can't go wrong with the sandwiches at DiNic's or Salumeria, and once in a while, the daily special at 12th Street Cantina makes......

Holy crap! Somebody forgot to send us the memo, but it seems that July is National Ice Cream Month. That would be far more exciting if there weren't a scant week left before August begins and the happiest month of all (according to our tummies) ends – and we've hardly had a chance to celebrate at all! Good thing that Reading Terminal Market has come to our rescue. They're seeing National Ice Cream Month......

The best of the internet, chopped into tiny bits and grilled for your enjoyment. NaughtyCodes.com actually has nothing to do with porn; it's a site that lists all those coupon and promotional codes that are only supposed to be sent to select customers. But now they're available to you, for naughty deals! (Via Jill, via her Mom) Um... this is just creepy. (Via Jill) What's the hottest new solo indie release? Songs for Ice Cream......

We're just going to get right to the point this week. The Colonial Theatre in Phoenixville is hosting its annual showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show this Saturday at 10 PM. Tickets are on sale now, so get your fishnets and your best bustier ready to do the time warp. Again. As if that were not enough to convince you that the Colonial is a national treasure, consider this: they're also hosting a screening......

Happy Father's Day! For those of you who have dads, are dads, or know dads, this one's for you, from all of us at the Gothamist network. It was a week of bizarre, embarassing headlines at DCist. The trial of the local administrative law judge who sued his cleaners for $54 million over a pair of missing pants left everyone shaking their heads. Then the capital city was nearly brought to its knees, twice, by......

What's new and/or interesting on TV this week. Creature Comforts (Mon, 8PM-8:30PM, CBS) - A new US version of the popular UK show created by Wallace & Gromit's Nick Park. It involves clay, stop-motion animated animals sharing their opinions on life. If it's anything like the original, the dialogue will consist of actual interviews with real people that end up being quite amusing when coming out of the mouths of gorillas and panthers. Unwrapped (Mon,......

There's so much going on across the Ist-a-Verse that it's almost impossible to keep track these days. Fortunately, we do it so you don't have to! Londonist took a walk through Oliver Twist's London, thanks to a gorgeous map layer for Google Earth. They also caught up with modern-day fictional London, with the Fantastic Four and 28 Weeks Later. It was a week of insanity over at DCist. They started the week off with......

Think back to May 20, 1997. I was finishing up my sophomore year in high school. I had a crush on a girl named Lauren who kissed me like she was licking an ice cream cone. (Yes, I broke up with her specifically for that reason.) I remember buying my first CD: Abra Moore's Strangest Places. This hot new singer/songwriter was hitting the top of all the charts with her up-beat pop/folk song, "Four Leaf......

The best of the internet, chopped into tiny bits and grilled for your enjoyment. Game|Life's got the logo and a screenshot from the next Katamari game, Beautiful Katamari. The Typing of the Dead is still probably the most ridiculous game we've ever heard of. We really thought it was a joke at first, but it actually exists! And to be honest, after we thought about it, we decided that learning to type by having to......

The best of the internet, chopped into tiny bits and grilled for your enjoyment. Ooh, a great big documentary on David Lynch is coming! Sweet. Well, we'll be damned. Grindhouse kind of tanked at the box office this weekend (probably because we forgot about the curse on CinePhillyist and accidentally predicted it would do well; sorry Robert and Quentin!). Admittedly, we should have figured the South and Midwest wouldn't get it, and that there would......

It seems like, all across the network, folks were up to no good. Maybe it was all the green beer from last weekend... Gothamist spent the week writing about New Yorkers behaving badly: at the post office, at the Garden, and at the fertility clinic. Calvin Klein may not be misbehaving, but he's just a little dirty, and in a completely different way than some NYC kitchens. SFist had its share of misbehave-rs, too, like......

The Philadelphia Inquirer has some more details about the madness that went down at West Philly High on Monday, as well as fall-out over the removal of the school's principal last week. Meanwhile, West Philly High isn't the only Philadelphia school experiencing violence and insanity; the Abigail Vare Public School on Moyamensing Avenue and Morris Street in South Philly went into lockdown Monday afternoon after a shooting occurred at a basketball court across the street.......

Author Caroline Tiger...

We're not sure that anyone doesn't have a blog these days. Which is why we weren't surprised to find out that Turkey Hill Dairy, in Lancaster County, has started Ice Cream Journal, a source for "The inside scoop on ice cream and Turkey Hill Dairy." Get it? The inside scoop? Those ice cream makers are so clever! Anyway, Ice Cream Journal is a surprisingly well-written, if completely marketing-based, blog that will keep you up......

This week’s quote comes from the song “Happiness” from You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. There is actually a litany of things that happiness is in that song, but our favorite lyric is: HAPPINESS IS TWO KINDS OF ICE CREAM. KNOWING A SECRET. CLIMBING A TREE. HAPPINESS IS FIVE DIFFERENT CRAYONS. CATCHING A FIREFLY. SETTING HIM FREE. Now, on with the listings! The Phantom of the Opera - In sleep he sang to me…. November......

I went to Crescent City for Restaurant Week and I'm only just now getting to write about it because of (a) Fringe and (b) life, but since everything on their Restaurant Week menu is also on their normal menu, no harm no foul. The Restaurant Week experience, of course, is a little different (a 9 p.m. dinner reservation means you don't really order, you just accept what's left), and that's where my biggest problem......

It's not nearly as miserably hot as it has been this summer, but it's certainly not too late for ice cream. Of course, that's a habit that can get expensive—and fattening. A few years ago, I invested in an ice cream maker, and while I still love me some Capogiro or Franklin Fountain goodies, I have no regrets about that purchase—especially since it cost me ten bucks at an end-of-summer retail sale! I've been making......

On a recent trip to the allergist, Elite -ist was informed of something quite shocking: a dog allergy. But Elite -ist grew up with dogs! Elite -ist has never had a bad reaction around dogs! Besides...just look at the picture. How could you be allergic to something that adorable? Austinist: Aww, hipster love! Sampaist: Our Portuguese isn't improving, but as long as Sampaist keeps posting adorable puppies—this time with a cute kid!—we'll keep posting their......

The Yaris is a car made by Toyota, but most of the crazy stuff Toyota is doing to market it has very little to do with cars. For instance, this week - today through Saturday - there's something called YarisWorks going on in the city. Basically it's a whole bunch of fun-sounding free events, all focusing on D.I.Y. arts and crafts, as part of the Yaris's whole Drive It Yourself marketing slogan. You might learn......

Merciful heavens! Turkey Hill has taken Tastykake's chocolate cup cakes and turned them into a frozen confection. (They've done it with the Kandy Kake too!) Has the universe gone topsy-turvy? Usually, this Phillyist shies away from ice cream cake...but cup cake ice cream? This we may have to investigate further. (via)......

Hey, thanks to that Philly Inquirer article we linked to a little while ago, about how the health checks on city restaurants and lunch carts are few and far between, "City Councilwoman Marian Tasco is asking for hearings on Philadelphia's restaurant inspection system." Tasco's resolution most likely will face little resistance (after all, what politician - or inhabitant of Philly for that matter - would be against better restaurant inspections?), and the hearings will probably......

Hey, Philly! We have another professional sports team to our name! It's the first of its kind in the state, and features world-renowned athletes. To be exact, it's a women's softball team called the Philadelphia Force. After a couple of rain-outs, they finally had their first game this past weekend. And they may play in Allentown, but they're definitely a Philly team; they lost their home opener. We like them, though, because we're choosing......

- Both philly and Philadelphia Will Do have some strong words for Geno's owner, Joe Vento, in reaction to his "When Ordering, Speak English" policy. Since when has "Whiz wit" been considered English? - Someone on Craigslist is having a missed connection...with our mythical citywide wireless connection. (Aren't we all?) - Books, Inq. points us towards news of "the world's first audio-only novel." Phillyist thought these were called "radio dramas;" or perhaps "MP3 drama"......