A week ago, I delighted you with a snapshot of my right hand grasping a petite cone of ice cream against a backdrop of colorful flowers, suggesting, by the post’s title, that ice cream has something to do with how I stay so stunningly slender. Now, I am sure there are quite a few naysayers out there who would like to believe I maintain my girlish figure by taking in only as many calories as I can suck out of a pillow, but it’s just not so. For the most part, I eat quite “clean” (Lemon Pledge makes for a lovely mid-day pick-me-up), but sometimes I do like to let my hair down from its careful chignon and have my fun. (Send me an SASE for a pamphlet on my secret diet tips.)
In general, I avoid dairy products, but sometimes the lure of pizza or ice cream must be answered, and although there are non-dairy imposters that are not just adequate but pretty convincing substitutes (their glasses-and-fake mustaches contain real lenses and actual human hair), nothing but the real thing will do. So, yes, I will make exceptions, and the recent day in late July was no exception to those exceptions.
Apparently I was all about the Vs the week I had the ice cream. At first there was just Valtrex and Vicodin. And then there were three, with the addition of this creamy sensation — Van Leeuwen ice cream, whose truck I spied outside Fairway while running afternoon errands. I made a mental note of it, borrowing a passerby’s PDA stylus to inscribe it directly onto my brain, causing pain a lot less severe than the brutal headaches, shingles’ sweet love letter to me.
I had originally thought I would check it out later on in the week, but because I am better at being impatient than procrastinating, I decided to stop by. In addition, I thought, “Wait. No. Between now and then, I could be run over by a Mr. Softee truck, so let’s seize the cone.” I hightailed it back to the truck within half an hour, ordered a small cone of gianduia (ordinarily I prefer a cup, so I do not have to race against the inevitability of the mess created by melting), and then … oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. So creamy, so delicious, so pure, so clean, so … Well worth dashing back to, well worth the price, well worth the calories and the shunning of the usual dairy avoidance.
The very personable guy manning the truck said the truck was being tested at that spot. I selfishly wanted it to remain, so I intended to go back at least three times a day, making ice cream my sole sustenance until its position was secured. However, I only saw the truck once again, this time a block or two north, on the same side of Broadway, but I did not stop, even though I know now that had I done so, the truck would have remained in the neighborhood, and all would have been right with the world.