Friday Five: Ice Cream!

1. Ice cream: warm weather only or a year-round food?

Definitely a year-round food. In the winter, French vanilla over a molten chocolate cake is heaven on earth.

2. Favorite flavor(s)

All.

Okay, I'm not crazy about B-R bubblegum flavor, but if I were desperate...

I'm particularly fond of things like Jamoca almond Fudge, Caramel Praline, and unusual flavors like ginger and green tea. And italian gelato (the rum raisin at Bar Nico on the Fondamenta Nuova in Venice, for example) is sublime.

3. Cake cone, sugar cone, waffle cone, cup?

Cup. I like my ice cream experience undistracted by other stuff.

4. Childhood ice-cream memory

Butterscotch ice cream sundaes at the fountain on Central Avenue. It was by the wallpaper store where my mother would go and spend HOURS poring through the pattern books deciding what to get for her next decorating frenzy. The sundae was my reward for playing quietly and not making a mess. I was so easily bought.

5. Banana splits: discuss.

Never really my thing, although other sundae variations (brownies with vanilla ice cream and hot fudge, for example) were pleasurable. Still, my preference remains for the pure ice cream experience (see #3).

The non-ice cream ice cream that I'd also recommend is coffee granita (strong, sugared espresso, frozen, then scraped into a large-crystal kind of ice), served with some whipped cream and a brioche. I understand that it's served for breakfast in the summertime in Sicily. Guess I'd better go check it out!

I am such a dessert slut...