Students share their favorite ice cream flavors at Blanch

Graphic by Aspen Pearson ’28

BY ASPEN PEARSON ’28

STAFF WRITER

One of the most popular items at Blanchard Dining Commons is the ice cream. With warm weather right around the corner, I polled the Mount Holyoke community on ice cream preferences. The Dining Commons cycles through a wide range of flavors throughout the year, but a few clear favorites stood out in student responses.

The most popular picks were Graham Central Station and green tea ice cream. Graham Central Station is a creamy graham cracker-flavored ice cream with notes of brown sugar. This is one of the more common flavors in the Dining Commons, popping up often in the coolers and usually disappearing quickly once people notice it’s there. It’s a pretty reliable choice if you want something classic and sweet after dinner.

Green tea is a more rare occurrence in the freezer. When it does appear, it tends to generate excitement among students who enjoy its lighter, more subtle flavor. Emily Berg ’28 noted in a survey conducted by Mount Holyoke News: “Part of me wishes the green tea flavor was around in the winter, but perhaps it would be less special … something to look forward to for spring/summer.”

Green tea is a pale green, creamy ice cream with a light matcha flavor that isn’t overly sweet. It also pairs surprisingly well with other flavors if you’re the type of person who mixes scoops. Green tea and strawberry together is a popular combination, but it also works well with vanilla.

Another campus favorite seems to be strawberry cheesecake, a spring flavor that's been out the last couple of weeks.

The ice cream comes directly from Maple Valley Creamery, just down the road in Hadley, Massachusetts. The Dining Commons rotates its flavors often, and over the course of the year students might see flavors that feel tied to different parts of the semester. Some of these seasonal flavors include my favorite, eggnog, along with apple, pumpkin oreo, and peppermint.

For some students, these seasonal flavors become tied to specific memories on campus. McKenzie Phelan ’28 wrote about her favorite, peppermint: “I first found out about this flavor in December during finals week, and it became a kind of coping mechanism for me. The candy cane vibes of it all reminded me that Christmas was soon, and I needed that hope of something beyond my next essay.”

Ice cream seems to provide a common comfort to the Mount Holyoke community. Whether you are stressed from a long week of classes, grabbing dessert after dinner with friends, or just wandering through the Dining Commons looking for something sweet, a scoop from the freezer has become a small but familiar ritual.

Barrie Ashby ’28 summarized these sentiments in words I’m sure all of us can relate to: “I love Blanch ice cream.”

Madeleine Diesl ’28 contributed fact checking.

Not a losing dog: Mitski's new album stunningly portrays loneliness

Graphic by Isabelle Peterson ’28

BY SARAH BERGER ’27

A&E EDITOR

Mitski’s new album, “Nothing’s About to Happen to Me,” focuses on the imagined life of a lonely woman. It is her first album in three years, releasing quietly following her last album “The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We.” 

Although the album is a new narrative, it shares many themes with her previous work. Many of the songs focus on changing yourself in order to be loved, being an outsider, and not understanding life. However, this album is particularly notable for its heavy emphasis on loneliness. Previously, Mitski has expressed feeling like an outcast, but her music has never embodied it so heavily. In past songs “Townie,” “Washing Machine Heart,”, and “Love me More,” she writes about the perils of interaction and flirts with the idea of reclusion. In “Nothing’s About to Happen To Me,” she actually is alone, grappling with all that it entails. 

The lead single, “Where’s my phone?” is an anthem for the digital age. Few artists are able to capture the fogginess of living half online, half in the — disappointing, misunderstood — flesh, but Mitski is up to the challenge. 

Mitski has always walked a fine line between emotional vulnerability and dramatics, between honest and tumblr-esque. There are a few times her lyricism crosses over into the sophomoric, or at the very least the cliché. This is particularly evident in “Rules,” where she sings “But I'm only crying 'cause it feels good / I'll have a new haircut, I will be somеbody else / And when I lеave my body / Please pretend that you don't see / How I'm no longer there behind my eyes.”  Or in “Dead Woman,” “Would you have liked me better if I'd died / So you could tell my story the way it ought to be?” That said, reading these lyrics on the page doesn’t give the same impression as hearing them out loud, sung in Mitski’s haunting voice, accompanied by her beautiful melodies. She could make the ABCs into a profound work of art. 

Although there may be thematic parallels with Mitski’s earlier work, there are clear musical differences apparent in her newest album. “If I Leave” will certainly be a hit for everyone who was grabbed by “First Love/Late Spring.” It’s a lovely album to put on during a rainy drive or when you want to commiserate with someone else about things just feeling off. Mitski has always had a talent for conveying depth of emotion, and that gift continues to follow her throughout the entirety of the album. 

Madeleine Diesl ’28 contributed fact checking.