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When Lisa Moir bought the Blue Pig Ice Cream shop in Croton she had never made ice cream before. But she kept the Blue Pig in the back of her mind while the shop sat darkened, on the market for many months. Moir was originally laid off from her part-time social work job in Greenwich, Conn. school district in 2008. As the economy collapsed and her marriage crumbled, she wondered how she would find time to spend with her daughter.
"My priority," says Moir, "was to be with my daughter, and I was trying to look at things closer in my community, because that's what I wanted to do. So, I created the ice cream plan, which was 'Plan Q.'"
Starting Ice Cream University with a Master's in Social Work, Moir attended ice cream classes in Queens, N.Y., with world travelling ice cream professor Malcolm Stogo. Over the past year Moir has nurtured the Blue Pig into the thriving, locally sourced ice cream shop it is today. "My dad," says Moir, "was a big entrepreneur, and he had died that year, and I just believed this was his gift to me."
The five main ingredients in Moir's ice cream are milk, cream, sugar, vanilla and eggs. All of her milk is from the Hudson Valley Dairy Coop. Portions of her produce, including her strawberries when in season, are sourced from her own rooftop garden, as is her peppermint, basil, and lavender. The spoons are compostable, and the rooftop garden is completely organic. Accordingly, Moir won her first Westchester Slow Food "Snail of Approval," to certify that indeed, she had greened the Blue Pig.
As John David Grant, Moir's boyfriend and greening accomplice noted, the Blue Pig's ice cream is "nourished by biology."
This year Moir will begin offering her ice cream at local events around Croton, in her brand new Blue Pig ice cream cart. Events include the upcoming Clearwater Festival, and Van Cortlandt Manor's "Animals and Acrobats," performance. Moir is also the Chair of the Cortlandt Land Trust.
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