Birthright – Entry #2

I don’t just love ice cream. I live it. My exposure to ice cream in so many aspects of my life makes me feel like I become more and more of an authority on it every day. I have been involved in the making and promoting of ice cream since 1998 and, of course, my ice cream enjoying experience logs in at close to 40 years – almost my entire life….and, as I previously told you….I live in “The Ice Cream Capital of the World”. And it doesn’t end there….

In fact, the ice cream cone and I share the same hometown. I could almost say that we share the same birthplace, were it not for the fact that I was brought into this world as a military brat and, therefore, born on (a-hem!!) foreign soil. So, of course, it is my parents’ fault. Isn’t it always??

So, if you overlook the small technicality of the whole “my-dad-is-an-air-force-veteran” thing, the ice cream cone and I share the same origins. The same birthright. At 8 months old, I moved “home” to St. Louis with my mom. Dad stayed back in the Mideast for a short time and thus began my upbringing in the same town that evolved the ice cream cone.

As a youth, I was strictly a chocolate ice cream girl…..but with the advance of years….and boys…I began to broaden my palette, along with my personality. No more was I the simple girl with simple tastes but soon became a young woman with more sophisticated preferences. Through college and dating, marriage and children, mid-life crisis and personal reinvention (or at least that is what my therapist calls it!) I have been travelling an ice cream journey that has me charting courses across menu boards of some of the world’s best and most interesting ice cream parlors…Prague, Vienna, New York City, Savannah, GA, and little seaside communities which dot the Florida coastlines. But my latest mission?

To find the world’s best cake flavored ice cream.

Maybe it is my long-lost youth, upon realizing that I just celebrated my 40th birthday, crying out…”Don’t forget about me!!” My kids love my new obsession because I, of course, drag them along with me on this journey.

Warning: To avoid my shameless plug for how unbelievable Blue Bunny’s Birthday Party ice cream is, please skip this paragraph. Oops – I guess it’s too late. Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Until next time, I remain…..1SweetMama