The Dairy Godmother: LeDuc's Rules, 02/02/2003

The most exciting moment of the tour came on the first custard stop on Tuesday.

I stopped at my brother's house to pick up nephew Glenn. Pewaukee Lake was not frozen over(amazingly). No ice fishing for me. Darn.

We went out to Wales to LeDuc's, a family favorite. I felt the need to ingest some protein since we planned to hit six custard stands that day. Even a two dollar brat at an ostensibly humble custard stand was an Usinger's on a real brat bun. Sigh.

Glenn said that if we wanted to talk to the owners that this would probably be one of the best places. I could see that, of all the places we went, this was the only place I could see that the owners were on the premises.At Gillises there were no fewer than nine teenagers working! The manager looked about seventeen years old.

I was easy to start up a conversation . The custard was delicious. Even though I am not fond of cashews, I ate the whole cup of caramel cashew. I told the woman at the window that I had a custard place in Virginia and that I liked her mix. She told me about it a bit. I am having some shipped out to try. When I do this I will post an announcement on this website so you can come in and try it yourself and give some feedback.

Anyway......
Jim Shackton, the owner along with Terri Shackton, then lead me over to a door that was placed about where you would expect the ladies's room would be. He opened it to reveal his own little dairy. WOW. Holding tanks, pasteurizing tank, chilling equipment. All absolutely gleaming. This has to be the only custard stand on earth that makes it's own mix. I asked how this came to be? Jim said the woman who owned the shop before them had had some sort of dispute or parting of the ways with her distributor and decided to make her own custard mix. She apparently did not have much opportunity to use it before she sold to the Shacktons. Jim, being a wise fellow, jumped right in. Although Jim said that he was able to make 200 gallons a batch, he also used the mixture I liked so much to supplement. Maybe buying mix once in a while is the Shackton's idea of being on vacation?