Tillamook Marionberry Pie

From Craig:

This is going to be hard to explain to non-ice-cream-lovers.

When we went on an RV adventure to the Pacific Northwest several years ago, after we crossed into Oregon along the Pacific coast we saw many signs advertising Marionberries. The only thing these brought to my mind was that many years ago, Washington DC had a mayor named Marion Barry who was convicted of being a crook.

Then we stopped at the Tillamook plant in central Oregon. Tillamook is one of the top cheese companies in the US, but at their plant we learned that they also make ice cream. In fact we bought two kinds of their ice cream at the plant, Caramel Butter Pecan and Marionberry Pie. Both were among the best ice cream I've ever had.

When we got home to the SF/Monterey Bay areas, I looked into buying their ice cream here. It seemed that the furthest south that Tillamook ice cream was delivered, was to a Tower Foods store in San Francisco, about 60 miles north. I called Tillamook and several of their distributors, but it seemed that this distribution pattern was written in stone!

I tried writing to several grocery chains with stores in our area, but never got any response. So it was with special anticipation that I looked forward to our trip up to Oregon, last June and July. Marionberry Pie was every bit as wonderful as I remembered.

Again we returned home with ice-cream-envy for people in Oregon. I've returned to working on the house while dreaming of road trips.  Recently we made a regular stop at our local Safeway store in Los Gatos. Without much enthusiasm I went through the frozen food aisle.

Guess what I found? A good selection of Tillamook ice cream, including Marionberry Pie! Of course I bought some, and it was even better than ever, probably because of the heat wave we've been having.

Which just goes to show you, if you want something, keep on promoting it. Maybe my email(s?) to Safeway helped this wonderful product appear at our local store.

From Merikay: I agree with Craig that Tillamook is great ice cream.  However my new eating protocol does not include ice cream!  It was one of the hardest thing to give up, and now that there is Tillamook in the freezer it is even harder.