Once Ditta Kasdan first tasted homemade ice cream in small-town Michigan, the commercial variety paled in comparison. She became a connoisseur of the frozen treat, and in 2003 she began her own search for perfection. In fact, her lifelong love eventually led her to forego a teaching career to begin making all-natural handmade ice cream using only real fruits and organic extracts. 

Since opening her first Dee Dee’s Ice Cream shop (Dee Dee was her childhood nickname) in Peggy’s Cove in 2004, Kasdan has grown her business to include a booth at the Halifax Seaport Farmers’ Market and a third location a block from the Halifax Common. Opening last October, her Halifax storefront sells not only homemade ice cream but also cappuccino and burritos. Several stores and restaurants in the city and surrounding area also sell her products.

Drawing on the math and chemistry classes she had taught at Armbrae Academy, a private school in Halifax, for almost 20 years, she plunged into her new business. “Ice cream is complicated chemistry,” she says. “My science background has helped.” During a trip to Texas in 2003 to visit her eldest son, the mother of four took a three-day gelato-making course, then bought a $10,000 Italian-made model for churning ice cream and started experimenting. She had some hits and a lot of misses, mostly due to texture problems, either too hard or too grainy.The following year Kasdan was ready to open, with the help of her children, in Peggy’s Cove. She decided to make ice cream instead of gelato because that’s what Nova Scotians traditionally eat; her ice cream is dense like gelato but with more butterfat. On a busy summer day she’ll sell 70 litres out of the small shop, which makes for long days because it’s made in nine-litre batches. 

Looking for a place to make her products throughout the year, Kasdan decided to open her Halifax shop. A risky step, she took out a loan on her house and borrowed from her mother. “It’s a huge amount of work,” she says. “You have to really believe in what you do.” 

For Kasdan, that means using pure local ingredients when possible. But with food costs soaring, it isn’t easy to do that and keep her prices affordable. So far customers have been happy to pay $3.50 for a small cone filled with such flavours as Berry Berry Goodness and Dark European Chocolate. “I believe in supporting local sustainable communities,” says Kasdan. “I’m not looking to get rich.”