Prompt 251-Dessert

What is your favorite dessert?

Ice cream!

I love ice cream so much, even if it doesn’t love me back. Give it to me in a bowl. Give it to me in a cone. Bury it in sprinkles. Cover it in fudge. Hard or soft, I don’t care. I want that frozen creamy deliciousness in my belly. I don’t even care if I give myself a headache from eating it too fast. It’s my favorite, especially when it’s too hot to eat anything else.

At that time, it’s also great for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Not that it needs to be melt-your-face-off hot out to have ice cream for a meal. Sometimes you just have a bad day that calls for an ice cream main course. But it’s best when it’s melt-your-face-off hot, lactose intolerance be damned.

If you are at all familiar with upstate NY, you know about Stewart’s, AKA the greatest one-stop-shop of them all. Stewart’s is a gas station and convenience store and, most pertinent to this post, ice cream shop all rolled into one. (They also have excellent coffee, another consumable close to my heart.) They have dozens of flavors and toppings. You could get a different combination every day of your life! You want a cone? They got ‘em. Milkshake? Heck yeah! Banana split? You bet! Hot fudge brownie sundae with cotton candy ice cream and Reese’s Pieces? Go for it! (Lookin at you, sis!)

Back in the long, long ago they used to give free cones out on certain themed holidays. (They still do the themed day cone thing, but now they charge 50 cents for them.) Wear green on St. Patrick’s Day? In costume on Halloween? Mom/Dad with kids on Mother’s/Father’s Day? Free cones! When I was in high school we would hit as many Stewart’s as we could after school. There were at least 5 in a 10 mile radius from the school. So much ice cream. So much tummy ache. So much worth it.

The other summer staple was soft serve ice cream at the stand across from the amusement park. Again, if you’re at all familiar with upstate NY and the Six Flags in Lake George, you probably also know Martha’s Dandee Ice Cream. It was featured on the Today show once upon a time and has become quite the tourist trap. It’s still a local staple though. There’s a hometown tradition to go on opening day, even if it’s snowing. Which it will. Because they open the last week of March/first week of April. In upstate NY. But we go anyway because it’s MARTHA’S.

Whether it’s Martha’s or another ice cream joint with soft serve ice cream, I always get the same thing. Hard ice cream, I’ll switch it up and try different flavors, but when it comes to soft serve, I gotta have my vanilla chocolate twist with rainbow sprinkles in a cone. I think I tried something different once, ONCE, and it was awful. Never again. Love my rainbow sprinkle twist.

Ice cream was such a central part of my summers growing up. Stewart’s. Martha’s. The ice cream truck driving through the neighborhood with its tinny bop blasting its presence as we scrambled to find some change and chase it down. Fudgcicles by the pool. Weekly ice cream dates at the other soft serve joint in town with a friend. Heck, even before middle school, my dad was a Schwann’s driver and so we always had ice cream in the freezer.

I don’t eat as much ice cream as an adult as I thought I would when I was a kid. I can have it whenever I want though. And I usually buy some when I remember that fact. I should have bought some when I went grocery shopping yesterday. I could go get some now. But that would require pants. Meh. I’ll get some another day.

Anyway, that’s enough about my love of ice cream. What’s your favorite dessert?

Have a great night! See you tomorrow!

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