Just Desserts

Who doesn’t love ice cream? It became one of my major food groups while visiting Aunt Marge and Uncle Erv in Ann Arbor over a few summer vacations from school. A Baskin-Robbins ice cream shop a few blocks away became a sort of summer school, an education of the cold and creamy kind, in my youth. Cousin Debbie, Lisa and I biked there often, sometimes more than once a day. Chocolate Mint Chip, Blue Moon, Chocolate Cherry, Daiquiri Ice…we tried them all. Thus began a lifelong love affair with ice cream.

Ice cream, good at any time of the year, takes on special properties in the summer, especially when served in a cone. It’s a happy food; it’s also a comfort food. There is nothing I’ve found that an ice cream cone can’t fix or make better. It’s especially effective as stress therapy. Is it any coincidence that ‘stressed’ spelled backwards is ‘desserts’? I don’t think so!

Is there an ice cream gene that predisposes one to enjoy it immensely? Is it hardwired into our brains at birth or first exposure? Is it in our blood? It should be apparent from this picture that I’ve passed whatever it is on to my children. Poor things.