Summerlove

I am sitting on my balcony right now eating a sugar cone of Breyer's cookies and cream ice cream. I have been thinking about this cone ever since the weather got really, really hot and by god, it is really, really hot.

All around the city new hot-weather treats keep popping up for our attention, gelato chains have sprung up like chicken pox on a 6 year old, I can't even count how many frozen yogurt places have appeared, each with their own "recipe", and water-ice, that hometown Philly favorite of mine, seems to want to try to stand in my way of a decent walk home from work, no matter what route I try. But none of these can really compete to that once ubiquitous ice cream. These days, if a parlour does not include singing attendants or 40 different items mixed in, it wont open. This is a shame. I fear my kids will grow up dreaming about tiny spoonfuls of gelato when the weather gets warm. If this happens, what else could go wrong? At the Rita's around the corner from me, they have gone against the water-ice unwritten code that says you MUST have cherry, chocolate and lemon. Usually, I am promised, at best, strawberry and mango. What gives? With all of the slow food, 100 miles foodies around, how come we can't get a basic, and amazing, ice cream places where I can get my sugar cone fix.

As a kid, we were promised that if the weather was hot, and the family was feeling relaxed, a trip to the local 31 flavors was in order. My dad can eat a chocolate sugar cone like a champ. My folks would take my sister I to the local dairy and where she would always get a cone of bubblegum ice cream. There is something about competing against the heat, trying to beat the melt, and stop that sweet, creamy sticky ice cream from getting on your hands. There is something amazing about the almost ingrained tongue dexterity most humans seem to have to work a non-uniform mound of ice cream into a perfectly formed cone with just their tongue and their determination that speaks to us a people.

On this day of 104 degree heat, I applaud you ice cream cone makers and consumers of America.