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A Dubuque ice cream shop has a new name and new owners, but the same popular ice cream.

Bliss Ice Cream held its grand opening on Friday at 198 Main St. in Dubuque. The location previously housed Ice Cream U Scream.

Despite the new moniker and the spruced-up interior of the business — which features pink-and-blue walls and tables with bases that were crafted from old sewing machines — Bliss Ice Cream will sell ice cream from Madison, Wis.-based Chocolate Shoppe Ice Cream Co., just as Ice Cream U Scream did.

New look for Galena coffee shop

A new Galena, Ill., coffee shop promises to give customers an out-of-this-world experience.

Cosmic Oasis: Drink Emporium plans to open soon on Galena’s Main Street. The location most recently housed Wanda’s Coffee House, which itself had replaced longtime coffee shop Mean Bean Roasters.

The business has a “retro space” theme, according to co-owner Alison Vanderpool. Among other decorations, she has painted a mural inside the shop that features former U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant in an old-fashioned spacesuit.

30-year study: Ultraprocessed foods increase risk of death by any cause

Low in nutrition and high in calories, ultraprocessed foods account for 57% of adult diets in the United States. A study published in the BMJ, a peer-reviewed medical journal, this month associated these snacks, drinks and ready meals with an increased risk of death by any cause.

“Higher ultra-processed food intake was associated with slightly increased all cause mortality,” according to the study. “The mortality associations for ultra-processed food consumption were more modest than those for dietary quality and varied across ultra-processed food subgroups, with meat/poultry/seafood based ready-to-eat products generally showing the strongest and most consistent associations with mortality.”

Winner, winner, saucy chicken dinner

Here are two great reasons to cook chicken thighs in a heavy skillet: the crisp skin and the fabulous fat it leaves behind. That fabulous fat is the base for a lush sauce that has endless variations; using this method, you’ll never eat the same dish twice.

The only things you need are a heavy skillet, quality chicken and patience. First, cast iron is perfect because it will distribute the heat evenly and help keep the chicken skin from burning. It also ensures that the meat cooks slowly and all the way through.

For the chicken, please choose one that’s free-range or pastured. These healthy birds are free from antibiotics and have been raised outside in fresh air. Their thighs are meatier and tastier, and the meat is high in omega-3 fatty acids and vitamins.

Have toast for dinner, but make it fancy

“It’s impossible not to love someone who made toast for you,” Nigel Slater, in “Toast.”

Bruschetta is toast with a fancy Italian name. A wonderful appetizer at cocktail gatherings and backyard barbecues, in our home, it’s way more than finger food. Bruschetta for dinner is a simple and expeditious means of using up that half loaf of good bread topped with the odds and ends of delicious meals, and the last of the half-filled jars of condiments.

Don’t confuse bruschetta with crostini, or “little toasts” in Italian. Crostini are thin slices of baguette that are cooked until very crunchy. Bruschetta — derived from the Italian word “bruscare,” meaning “to roast over coals,” is drizzled with olive oil before toasting over a grill or under the broiler. The slices are typically bigger, thicker and softer than crostini.

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