Ice cream seems to be the most popular dessert at both Kendal and Crosslands, and there is general agreement that Bassett’s ice cream (which is the brand generally served here) is top notch.

Kendal resident Donna Brennan recently pointed out to me that Bassett’s made the Philadelphia Inquirer’s list of favorite ice cream and gelato, and that motivated me to report on a couple of interesting stories concerning the history of ice cream at KCC.

Adoption of Bassett’s. You may wonder: how did Kendal and Crosslands come to settle on Bassett’s ice cream? Apart from the well-loved company store in the Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia, Bassett’s is not a brand you often encounter in ice cream shops, and Bassett’s doesn’t do much promotion, so it isn’t very well known.

Steve Wandishin (Kendal’s Culinary Service Manager) tells me that, many years ago, a Crosslands resident left a bequest which was designated to be used for better ice cream and better coffee. The money was used to bring in Bassett’s, which was an instant hit. (It is also worth pointing out here that KCC coffee is definitely a cut above institutional coffee I’ve encountered elsewhere, which is possibly another consequence of that bequest.) [See update below for more on that Crosslands resident and her bequest.]

Kendal residents who visited Crosslands soon noticed the difference in ice cream and lobbied to have Bassett’s here too. It was more expensive than the generic ice cream served here at the time, but Wandishin put the increase into his budget request and it was approved. We’ve been eating Bassett’s ever since, and there’s no going back.  

Katrina response. In 2005, right after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, or so the story goes (I haven’t been able to get confirmation on this), a group of Crosslands residents (and maybe some Kendal residents too) got together to discuss what they could do to help. Various suggestions were considered.

One proposal was to have no ice cream for two weeks, and to send the money that was saved to a relief organization. That idea was immediately shot down. Apparently, we are willing to make some kinds of sacrifices, but not having Bassett’s was too much to ask. Instead, money was raised to send two KCC staffers to New Orleans for two weeks to help with post-hurricane cleanup.

Update, 7-17-25: Since writing the above, I have learned more about the Crosslands resident and her bequest. Her name was Kitty Smith, and she died in 2013. Her legacy included not only better ice cream and coffee, but also a series of sumptuous dinners (the “Kitty Smith dinners”) that Crosslands residents enjoyed from 2015 to 2017. This remarkable story was written up by Diana Stevens in the Crosslands Chronicle for December 2022 (see page 8). The spirit of these dinners continues in the form of the “Culinary Dinners” that we still enjoy (on both campuses) from time to time.