Viva Pops offers frozen treats with a gourmet twist<\/p>\n
Por Pat Sherman<\/strong> When Lisa Altmann’s customers first peruse the curious assortment of flavors at her Normal Heights “pop shop,” they often gaze at her with a quizzical expression. <\/p>\n For the past year, Altmann has been serving up her gourmet, organic version of paletas, Popsicle-style frozen treats popular throughout Mexico. <\/p>\n While she features some traditional tastes favored by Baja street vendors, such as mango-chili and pineapple-chili, the comparison stops there. Her \u201cfun fusion pops\u201d go far beyond what paleta and Popsicle fans are accustomed to.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople from Mexico or who are Mexican-American kind of go, \u2018Wait, what\u2019s this apricot lemongrass?\u2019\u201d Altmann said. <\/p>\n \u201cI think when we first opened people (from the U.S.) just expected what they grew up with, like a Bombpop \u2014 overly sweetened with artificial colors.\u201d<\/p>\n However, one lick of lightly sweetened fruit and herb pairings such as lavender lemonade, strawberry- basil or pear-vanilla-rose is enough to unbridle the taste buds of the most conservative customer, Altmann assures. <\/p>\n On a recent Sunday at Viva Pops, located at 3330 Adams Avenue, repeat customer Daniel Bernstein stopped in to try a hibiscus-lime pop. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve never had this flavor, but it\u2019s really good,\u201d chimed Bernstein, who discovered Viva Pops through yelp.com. <\/p>\n Altmann, a Talmadge resident whose background is in interior design, began selling her festively colored pops at farmers markets throughout San Diego, where she can still be found on weekends. She uses fresh, organic fruits, vegetables and herbs purchased from local growers, often at the markets where she sells Viva Pops.<\/p>\n Some of her current offerings include lavender lemonade, mojito, blood orange, strawberry-basil, pineapple chili, key lime pie, creamy passion fruit, Mexican chocolate and strawberry-rhubarb with ginger.<\/p>\n \u201cEverything changes with the season so I\u2019m constantly coming up with new flavors,\u201d Altmann said. \u201cI can keep my flavors fresh and creative just based on (the produce) my friend have available \u2013 and pretty much anything that I\u2019ve seen available I\u2019ve tried to make a pop out of.\u201d<\/p>\n Some of the more unconventional combinations she\u2019s tackled include savory pops, such as tomato with smoked salt and watermelon with cilantro and lime. She also makes mini-pops, which can be served as a palate cleanser between dinner courses, or as an accompaniment to other deserts. <\/p>\n \u201cI like to play around with herbs,\u201d Altmann said. \u201cI like the different notes that you can get in blending things together. I don\u2019t like things to be monotonous, the same and predictable. I\u2019ve even done sweet potato.\u201d<\/p>\n Altmann uses commercial grade freezing techniques that solidify her pops in about a half hour, though the rest of the process is time consuming and labor intensive.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t cut a lot of corners,\u201d she said. \u201cWe squeeze the juices, we skin the apricots \u2026 infuse things and make simple syrups \u2026 That\u2019s sort of the joy of it and I think why they taste so good.\u201d<\/p>\n Husband and business partner Jack Altmann, who works fulltime as an IT program manager, helps out at the shop and serves as chief taste tester. <\/p>\n \u201cI’ll be honest, (the concept) did seem a little whacky,” he said, “but if you meet Lisa you’ll find she’s one of a kind. She’s the perfect person for this business.”<\/p>\n Viva Pops sell for $2.50 apiece. On her website, Altmann encourages customers to submit their own flavor suggestions.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we pick their suggestion and I come up with a great recipe, I choose that person as my \u2018pop star\u2019 and they get a dozen Popsicles and we write about them on the website,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Though the number of pops sold fluctuates from season to season, Altmann said she sells well over 2,000 per month. During winter months, when business slows, she markets Viva Pops to caterers and event planners. <\/p>\n \u201cAs the year has gone by we are really going through the sticks and through flavors quicker,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m doing more and more farmers markets and a lot more events. I think people are sort of wrapping their head around what we\u2019re doing.\u201d <\/p>\n For more information on Viva Pops, visit ilovevivapops.com.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Viva Pops offers frozen treats with a gourmet twist By Pat Sherman SDUN Assistant Editor When Lisa Altmann’s customers first peruse the curious assortment of flavors at her Normal Heights “pop shop,” they often gaze at her with a quizzical expression. For the past year, Altmann has been serving up her gourmet, organic version of […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":243473,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"Savory on a stick","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11551,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-243472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nAsistente de edici\u00f3n SDUN <\/p>\n