To Float or not to Float...

A Jeanne and Cassondra Food Fight....

Cassondra: I was in New York a couple of weeks ago, like many of the Bandits, and had a chance to spend just a bit of time with the one Bandit I sometimes refer to as “my evil twin.”

You might wonder why we would think of ourselves that way, since I’m short and dark haired, with a rather overpowering preference for black clothing, dark blue nail polish, and deep purple lipstick, while Jeanne is tall, stacked and blonde, with a tendency to wear *shudder* earth tones.

Jeanne: Hey! I resemble that remark! (Heehee. Actually, it's quite a nice description....thanks!)
Cassondra, rolling her eyes: Nevertheless, for you who might not have noticed this, we tend, often, to think alike about certain things. We’re both extremely analytical, come from strong marketing, art and design, and business backgrounds, and we both like things that go boom.

Jeanne: I love it when she calls me analytical. I SO don't think I am, but it's nice to know someone ELSE does!

Cassondra: Will you let me finish?

Jeanne: Pray, continue, my Evil Twin.

Cassondra: Thank you. We also both come from small country towns, love plants and gardening, and have a strong interest in a lot of similar things.

But when it comes to food, the similarities….well…I begin to doubt our twinhood.

Jeanne: Gasp! Say it isn't SO!!!

Cassondra: Yes! It's so! During the New York trip, a vast chasm opened between us. Yes, that’s right. We’re disagreeing about food again. And this time, it’s sacred.

Jeanne: (muffled laugh) It's a sacred cow-product! Oh, noes!!

Cassondra stifles a grin: This is serious! Y’all remember my ice cream blog, right? So you know I’m no stranger to cow-originated goodness. So it’s probably no surprise to you that I love floats.

Jeanne: Ugh.

Cassondra: Hey! I mean I don’t just like floats. I love floats. Being much like the Sally character in When Harry Met Sally, I like them made a certain particular way, of course. I do NOT want the ice cream all blended together with the soda. That’s just gross.

Y’all remember Koogle, right? Peanut butter and jelly blended together in one container? Like that. Blech. Grrrrross.

Jeanne: Oh, now that WAS disgusting. Bleech is right.

Cassondra: Thank you. But as to floats, the ice cream and the soda of choice should not become some amorphous, smooth substance. The ice cream and the soda must remain individual. It’s a marriage of two distinct and opposite individuals, one with a crisp, bright burn, and one with a sweet, soft, creaminess. It is NOT a genetic blending experiment, where everything ends up looking the same. Ew.

I want generous scoops of ice cream, with Coke or root beer poured over the top (allowing proper time for the foam to go down, of course), then poured over the top again, until the container is full to the top of soda, and then I want extra Coke or root beer on the side. While I realize there is a group of float lovers who prefer to have their Coke poured in first, then their ice cream scooped in, because, they say, it doesn’t foam nearly as badly that way, I say this is bowing to convenience. Maybe even bordering on laziness, this sacrifice of quality for speed of preparation. I am a Coke Over Ice Cream float girl.

I do not want chocolate ice cream, nor any other flavor except rich, natural vanilla. No swirls, no nuts, no candy additives. I want a bit of time for the ice cream to become malleable. Then I poke at it with the long-handled spoon so bits of it break off into the ambery liquid. So I can then slurp the glorious combination.
Yummmmm.

Now, brace yourselves, because I know you’ll be shocked. I was. But our beloved Duchesse, Jeanne, my otherwise evil Bandita twin….dare I even say it?

She does not like floats.

This, I do not understand. Instead, she likes malts.

Jeanne: Yes, yes I do.

Now let me be clear. It's not that I find a float abhorrent or anything, it's just....well...Let me put it this way. It's a million degrees here in DC this week. The humidity is about 110%, with blue skies, and no rain. I'm hibernating in the house. Hiding, actually. Do you know what that kind of humidity does to my hair? Eeeeek!

Coke, Diet Coke, Root Beer - they're all wonderful, but there is nothing, and I mean NOTHING that is as refreshing and "bring-down-the-core-temp-good" like a milkshake. In particular, a malt. You know, a mix of cold, gorgeous ice cream in vanilla, coffee, chocolate (pick a flavor, but it's got to be real ice cream), luscious milk, and malted flavoring. YUMMMMM!!!

Cassondra: Okay, we agree on the "real ice cream" part, but once you get flavors or - UGH! - MALT in there, we are at a very wide cravasse in our twinhood. I cannot understand this passion you have for malt. Malted milk balls--okay I can tolerate those. But malt in your ice cream? Yuck. Give me a good, old fashioned float any day. You know, an ice cream float - ice cream floating in a soft drink, like root beer.

Jeanne: Ohhhh no. No fizzy, fuzzy stuff messing up my ice cream, please and thank you. I'm planning to have a malt today in fact, and tomorrow, and probably the next day as a defense against the evil heat and humidity. (We have a code orange heat advisory - baaaaaad)

Cassondra: Truly, you astonish me. Why would you want to diss my perfect summer beverage? I will admit to one exception to my strict coke/vanilla combo.

Jeanne: Just the one?

Cassondra: Oh, be quiet. The one is the orange dreamsicle float, with vanilla ice cream and orange soda. Oh. My. Gosh. And when anyone has a sick stomach, I make them an orange sherbet with 7-up float. Goes down easy and stays down when nothing else will.

Jeanne: Remind me not to be sick around you. Hate to admit it but I'm SO not a dreamsicle fan. My DH - he'd LOVE for you to be around when he's sick. He's an huge fan of orange/vanilla combos, no matter what frozen form they take.

And going back to the point at hand, why would you want to ruin a perfectly good scoop of ice cream by submerging it in, or pouring Coke over it? Or Root Beer? Why, for that matter, would you ruin a perfectly good, ice cold root beer, by dumping ice cream in it?

Cassondra: Oh, please. I’m sorry, but what, precisely, IS malt? I’ve wondered this for a long while now. They never let you actually see it, and I find that deeply troubling. It doesn’t come from a “malt” plant. There is no “malt cow.” No “malt truck” drives up and unloads cans of it. They dump it into the cup when you’re not looking, then they keep their backs to you while they put in the ice cream and blend it all together.

Jeanne: *rubs hands in glee* Malt is made from grain, m'dear Twin! It's the food of the Gods, don't-cha-know. Snork!!! See, you get a grain AND a dairy serving when you get a malt!

(Nancy, that makes malted milk balls a grain food! We're saved!)

Cassondra: Maybe we should switch husbands since your husband, Ralph, likes floats and dreamsicles. My husband, Steve, likes floats, but alas, Jeanne, like you he LOVES malts. In fact he likes EXTRA malt in his vanilla malts. I have no idea how we ended up together.

He has a theory that floats, actually, are a regional thing. A few years ago, he worked for a big hospital corporation, and traveled all over the country visiting hospitals and helping with their scheduling software. He’s run across several places where floats are not served. At one point he was in Texas, (I think) when he stopped by an ice cream shop—one of the little glass-walled kind that I blogged about a couple of months ago—and asked for a float. They looked at him with a blank stare. Then they frowned.

“A what?” they asked.

“A float,” he said. “You know, ice cream with coke or root beer poured over it?”
The girl looked over at her ice-cream scoop-wielding companion. Scoop girl came over and stood near girl number one, making an impenetrable wall of “ya ain’t from here are ya” confusion. They’d never heard of a float.

I mean really! They don't know about floats! How can this be? After I’ve heard such nice things about Texas? I might start to believe that Texas really is a whole other country—an alien one where they don’t serve floats.

Jeanne: Now, I do find that hard to believe--the not knowing about floats. Or maybe it's that your region (Kentucky) and my original region (North Carolina) are so close and so similar that they DID know about floats.

However, your point about Texas being an alien country is also well taken. It IS where they filmed Cowboys and Aliens, so....coincidence? Perhaps not!

(Then again, anything that features Daniel Craig AND Harrison Ford? Rrrrrowwww!)

Cassondra, laughing: Could be, could be. Steve explained the concept, but they could not imagine pouring soda (pop, Coke, soft drink, whatever they call it down there) over ice cream.

You know what I think, though? I think they served him the malt he settled for (Bleh), then they closed the windows, and late that night, after dark, with the lights out, they scooped out some ice cream, poured root beer over it, and found their way to Nirvana. The question, of course, is whether they’ve kept it their special little secret, or whether they’ve shared it with others, spreading the float love across a barren, malt-infested land.

Jeanne: Malt infested? Oh, for Pete's sake! It's GRAIN, I tell ya'! So we're a grain infested land. Excellent. Amber waves, and all that. Snork! Tell Steve we'll fix him right up with a malt, and you and Ralph can go slurp down some carbonated milky goo drinks. I swear, I'm sending Steve a ginormous box of malted milk balls for Christmas, just to tweak you. Bwahahahahah!

Cassondra: Ya'll can have them. I'll studiously ignore them as I find Nirvana in ice cream and Coke. Oh, and your husband is too tall for me, and you're taller than Steve, so you keep Ralph, and I'll keep Steve. Kay?

Jeanne: Of course, because, hey, we chose them for other reasons than ice-cream-beverage preferences. *VEG* But when visiting all together, the four of us? Ya'll go to the other side of the table with those floats. Steve and I will keep our malts allll nice and soda-free.

Okay, so who's side are YOU on? Malt or Float?

Flavored ice cream, or pure, perfect vanilla?

Toppings, nuts, and fruits? (And here I AM in Twinhood again because I don't like cold nuts - SNORK! - nor do I like fruit goo on my ice cream)

Cassondra: Fruit goo. Ewwwww. Real fruit? That's different. Love me some bananas or strawberries....slurp...or chocolate....yummm..oh..ahem...

Jeanne: Back to being Twins - I'm there with you on real fruit on ice cream - or IN ice cream. Just not goo.

One scoop or two? Or four?

And last but not least, besides vanilla, what's your favorite flavor?

Wendy Watson Returns With More Mystery Ice Cream!

interview with Suzanne

Wendy Lyn Watson writes deliciously funny cozy mysteries with a dollop of romance.  Her Mysteries a la Mode (I Scream, You Scream (October, 2009) and Scoop to Kill (September 7, 2010)) feature amateur sleuth Tallulah Jones, who solves murders in between scooping sundaes.  While she does not commit--or solve--murders in real life, Wendy can kill a pint of ice cream in nothing flat.  She's also passionately devoted to 80s music, Asian horror films, and reality TV.  (www.wendylynwatson.com)

Suz: Welcome back to the Bandit Lair, Wendy, and congratulations on the upcoming release of your second book, Scoop To Kill, in your cozy mystery series Mystery A La Mode! We so enjoyed having you with us last year. Pull up a chair, Sven brought us a pitcher of cool Mojitos to share while we chat, and tell us what you've been up to the past year.

Wendy: Thanks for the cocktail, Sven! And thank you, Suz, for inviting me back to the Lair.

It's been a busy year, Chez Wendy. I've been so busy promoting my Mysteries a la Mode, going to conferences and book festivals, talking to writing and reading groups . . . I think I've traveled more this year than in the five years before. And, of course, I've been writing, both the second and third Mysteries a la Mode and developing a few other projects (both cozy and dark). Stay tuned!


Suz: So, book 2 is titled Scoop To Kill (I love these titles) and has the same heroine as in the first book, I Scream, You Scream, Tallulah Jones. What trouble does she get into this time?

Wendy: This time around, Tally's neice Alice, who is a student at the local college, stumbles over the body of a murdered graduate student. When Alice's favorite teacher looks like Suspect #1, Alice rushes in to prove her innocence, and Tally is not far behind ... trying to protect Alice. Together, they uncover all sorts of Ivy League shenanigans.


Suz: I see her old boyfriend Finn is back for book 2. Without giving away details, want to fill us in on their relationship?

Wendy: Oh, yes. Finn. Tally and Finn are still trying to work out their relationship, how to know each other as the adults they are now and not the kids they were when they dated in high school. But the sparks are flying . . . and in Scoop to Kill, Finn has some competition for Tally's affection.



Suz: Your secondary cast of characters are a hoot. Did you base them on people you know? And how important of a role do you think they fill in cozy mysteries?

Wendy: I sometimes borrow bits and pieces of people--physical characteristics, quirks, turns of phrase--for my secondary characters, but I never take anyone wholesale. Honest.

Secondary characters are critical to cozies. To sustain a series with the same core group of characters, they all have to pull their weight; you can't rely solely on your heroine to keep things interesting. A lot of secondary characters end up with a very important role: suspect. Those people have to be complex, even if they're only in a few scenes. They have to be capable of murder, but not downright evil. Developing characters to the point that readers can say, "yes, pushed in just the right way, I can imagine this person committing the ultimate crime," that takes a little effort.

Suz: Last time you gave away a great ice cream sauce recipe in your book. Any special items for your readers this time?

Wendy: Absolutely! This time around, there's a great recipe for Peanut Butter `Smores Ice Cream Cake and an interesting milkshake recipe. It involves a Dr Pepper reduction . . . but you have to trust me, it's delish.

Suz: Peanut Butter 'Smores Ice Cream Cake? Girl, you are trying to kill me. (Sven, quick copy down that recipe!) Ahem, so, Wendy, when can we expect the next book in this series? (Please don't tell me one a year? I really can't take it!)

Wendy: Not quite a year ... Book Three (tentatively entitled "A Parfait Murder") is due out in June of 2011.

Suz: Have you thought about writing in another sub genre?

Wendy: I have! I love cozies--the humor, the whimsy, the heartfelt emotion--but I've got a project in the works that's straight suspense. It's been a trip, exploring my darker side. (People who know me might be surprised to find out I have a darker side ... but somewhere beneath the homemade cookies and giggles, I've got a real edge.) The real trick is balancing the two, moving between light and dark. Light comes naturally; I have to do some mental gymnastics to get into that frame of mind.

Wendy: So, since we were talking about secondary characters, Bree is Tally's cousin and also her side-kick. She is so much fun that she even gets her own fan mail. Do you have any favorite sidekicks in books? Who are they and what do you like about them? I'll be giving away a signed copy of to one lucky commenter.

Holiday Food Favorites, 4th of July Style!

by Caren Crane

At work recently, they posted a survey on our Intranet site asking what peoples' must-have food item was for Independence Day. Our headquarters are in Raleigh, North Carolina, where we don't have genteel picnics like the lovely Regency/Victorian affair pictured here. There are never footmen waiting to fetch the hampers and no one ever clears up the mess left behind except the picnickers themselves. When we have a cookout, we do it Southern style. For that reason, the choices on our workplace survey had a distinctly Southern flare. In the South there is nothing we love better than a cookout (or any other affair involving food), so this survey attracted a lot of responses. I did not agree with all the choices presented, but managed to choose one. The choices were:

1. Southern-style BBQ - I could see where they got this one, but I've never considered BBQ a necessity at the 4th of July festivities. North Carolina, though, is the leading hog producer in the United States so I know that many here take their pork products very seriously. They have a tradition here called a "pig picking". They roast a whole pig on a spit over a fire (or on a smoker if they have one for the purpose) and people literally pick the meat off the pig once it's done. I find this a barbaric and unappealing pasttime despite the 28 years I've lived in North Carolina. This one did not get my vote.

2. Corn on the cob - This was more like it. I remember many a family reunion at my paternal grandfather's farm (it was a hobby farm on his timber property) where corn was wrapped in foil and roasted on the grill, as God intended. It wasn't just any old corn, either. It was sweet, white Silver Queen corn that had just been picked from the fields near the house. Best. Corn. Ever! I seriously considered voting for the corn because of my fond memories of the Crane family reunions, but I did not vote for this one.

3. Ice cream - At the above-mentioned family reunion, as well as at reunions on the Dugger side of the family, there was always homemade ice cream. I remember when the ice cream churn had to be loaded with ice cubes and salt and hand-cranked for hours until the ice cream was done. Of course, Poppa Crane had an automatic ice cream maker as soon as they came on the market, which was a nice break for the young men in the family, but I remember the hand-cranked churns and the fresh peach ice cream with a sweet pang of nostalgia. Despite all those peach and vanilla memories, though, I did not vote for ice cream.

4. Hamburgers and hot dogs - The American favorites, burgers and dogs. I have so many memories of grilling hamburgers and hot dogs I have trouble singling any out. I have enjoyed grilled meats as centerpieces of cookouts in Tennessee, Texas, North Carolina, Florida, Georgia and Alabama. I have eaten tons of burgers and dogs and enjoyed each and every carcinogen-laden mouthful. There are few pleasures greater than a hot dog grilled within an inch of its life, popped open at the ends, blackened at the grill marks, slathered in mustard and relish. Mm, mm good! Still, my family gave up beef and pork a couple of years ago and I don't miss beef burgers much. All the hot dogs I've had have been chicken or turkey, which are good but just aren't the same. So, I did not vote for burgers and dogs.

5. Watermelon - Aaah, watermelon. Nothing evokes images of summer quite like watermelon. Hefting a two-inch-thick slice from half a watermelon is one of life's simple, sticky pleasures. As a kid, we always ate watermelon outside. We sprinkled it lightly with salt (no idea why) and spit seeds gleefully into the yard. By the time we reached the slightly-sour part next to the rind, our bare arms and legs were covered in juice. Watermelon eating was followed by turning on the hosepipe (which is what we called the garden hose) and washing the juice off our sun-kissed bodies with clear, cold water. Yes, watermelon means summer to me and watermelon got my Independence Day vote.

Of course, others did not agree with me. Hamburgers and hotdogs won by a landslide, with watermelon coming in a distant second. Corn on the cob was third, BBQ fourth and ice cream dead last, finishing with only 3% of the vote. Much as we all love ice cream, its life is fleeting in the Southern July heat and it simply couldn't hold its own. My own Independence Day must-have is blueberry/blackberry cobbler. It didn't even make the survey!

What are your Independence Day favorites? If you don't celebrate Independence Day, what would you have chosen from our five survey items? Do any evoke splendid summer memories? We would love to hear them!


And for all of you in the United States, HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!!

Only One Scoop?!

by Anna Sugden

Summer has arrived here in England (for this week, at least!). Temperatures are hovering pleasantly in the high 70's, cricket is being played on the village greens and the best sign of summer of all ... the tinny notes of 'O Sole Mio' (better know to us over here as the music from the ice cream ad - Just One Cornetto) ringing across the neighbourhood as the ice cream van plies its trade.

The first ice cream van aka Mr Whippy (though, these days they aren't all the real deal!) appeared last weekend and all the neighbourhood kids (young and old) lined up for their favourite summer treat ... the 99. (see pic left). No idea why it's called a 99, but up and down the country everyone loves them.

The real 99 is a whipped ice cream with a Cadbury's chocolate Flake stuck in it. For special treats, you can have sauce on it - strawberry is my fave, though the kids like the blue one! You can also have an extra Flake!


The ice cream vans of my childhood also had a wonderful array of ice lollies - who wanted boring vanilla ice cream (even with the added extras) when you could have a Lolly Gobble Choc Bomb or a Zoom or a Fab?!

Other fond memories of the pre-Baskin Robbins, Haagen Dazs and Ben & Jerry's days are the ice cream desserts ... the Arctic Roll, the Neapolitan and (for the posh folks) the Vienetta!

And then, the really special treats ... the banana split and the knickebocker glory.



When I was a teenager, we lived in Virginia and there was a Farrells Ice Cream Parlour nearby. One of my favourite birthdays was at Farrells - complete with a Pikes Peak for the whole table. I couldn't find a pic of it, but the thing was HUGE!

Don't get me wrong, I love favour varieties too. My best friend growing up and I bonded over our love for mint chocolate chip ice cream.

But, you can't limit me to one scoop!

How can I choose between mint choc chip and strawberry cheesecake, Chunky Monkey, Cookie Dough, banana split, Cherry Garcia and the late lamented Uncanny Cashew and Wavy Gravy?!

Mmm ... time for the yummy boys of the ice to delve into the Lair's freezer and serve up some ice cream. So, grab a hockey hunk and give him your order *g*. [For P226 and any other BB males - we have some ice girls on hand too! But you'll have to be quick, those gals can really skate!] Triple scoops all round!

Do you have any fun ice cream memories - favourite desserts, ice lollies or other chiller delights?

WENDY LYN WATSON DELIVERS A COOL MYSTERY TO THE LAIR

Interview with Suzanne

Suz: Welcome to the Bandit, Lair, Wendy. Pull up a barstool and we'll have one of the cabana boys fetch us a margarita. So congratulations on the debut of I SCREAM, YOU SCREAM, the first in your cozy mystery series. Please tell everyone what the book is about.

Wendy: Cocktails! Fantastic! Had I known we were having snacks, I would have brought along some of Tally's avocado gelato. Maybe next time ...

I SCREAM, YOU SCREAM is about Tally Jones, proprietor of Dalliance, Texas's ice cream parlor, Remember the A-la-mode. With a struggling business, a crumbling historic home, and a motley assortment of family members depending on her, Tally swallows her pride and agrees to provide ice cream for her ex-husband's company luau. But when her ex's arm-candy girlfriend drops dead, Tally finds herself scooping for her life, hoping to find a murderer before she finds herself locked in the hoosegow.

Thankfully, Tally's cousin Bree, Bree's daughter Alice, and Tally's high school beau Finn Harper are all on hand to help her out.

Suz: I've been looking forward to this book since you first announced it at one of our chapter meetings. How did you come up with the concept?

Wendy: Funny you should ask. Normally, I start with a very vivid scene, and the characters and plot flow from that. For I SCREAM, YOU SCREAM, though, I started with the hook: ice cream. My agent and I had a brainstorming session, trying to think of ideas for a cozy series, something that I knew about and was passionate about and that people would find relatable. Well, friends, this girl knows food. Cooking it, eating it, reading about it, dreaming about it ... I {puffy heart} food. And the mother of all foods, in my opinion, is ice cream.

As soon as I said the words aloud, Kim and I knew it was the perfect hook for me. And it has been. My husband jokes that he can always tell when I've been writing "ice cream procedural," the passages where Tally is making or eating ice cream, because I get all keyed up and he can't drag me away from the computer.


Suz: Tallulah, "Tally" Jones is the star of this series. She has a lot to overcome, but doesn't come off perfect. How did she first make her appearance to you?

Wendy: Ice cream equals indulgence. It's sensual and luscious and fattening as heck. I wanted a character whose life was the opposite of that. And thus Tally Jones was born. She's all about duty and responsibility and being a good girl and not making a scene. At least on the outside. She's got ice cream in her soul, though, and getting down to that vibrant, raw, passionate person is going to be tons of fun.

Suz: The secondary characters in I SCREAM, YOU SCREAM are a hoot. How do they play a part in Tally's life?

Wendy: Wow. You get right to the heart of the matter, huh?

That's a big theme in the book, how we define ourselves relative to the people around us. My extended family lives in a small town, and everyone is defined by their relationships to one another: "Roberta's boy," or "Junior's ex." We moved around a lot when I was growing up, so for me, those sorts of relationships were largely impermanent; I didn't have a place in some vast interpersonal web, but was mostly floating free. As a result, that small town feel intrigues me.

In this book, I play a lot with that notion of being defined by the people around you, both your relationships to them and their expectations of you. On the one hand, I find that sort of belonging seductive. On the other, I can see how it could be stifling, oppressive. For Tally, it's both.

Gee. Didn't mean to get all heavy, but you really touched on one of the more emotional themes of the book. And while I love to laugh--and hopefully make others laugh, too--I want Tally's story to touch people's hearts, too.

Suz: Speaking of Finn Harper, is there a future romance in the works between him and Tally?

Wendy: LOL! Yes, one of the most delicious threads of the story (to me) is Tally's struggle to define her relationship with her high school boyfriend Finn. When the book begins, she hasn't seen him in nearly two decades, not since she broke his heart in the Tasty-Swirl parking lot on the eve of their high school graduation. When he comes back to town and into her life, he stirs up all sorts of feelings she'd rather not examine too closely.

Do they have a future? Hmmmm. Maybe. Finn and Tally have a lot of past to overcome before they can start thinking about happily ever after. And, well, there might be a competitor for Tally's affections just around the corner .....

Suz: So what's next in the MYSTERY A LA MODE series?

Wendy: SCOOP TO KILL is slated for a July 2010 release. Tally's precocious niece Alice is finishing up her first year at Dickerson College, and when the annual Honor's Day festivities turn bloody, Alice enlists her Aunt Tally's help in solving an ivory tower murder.

Suz: At the end of I SCREAM, YOU SCREAM you have a delicious recipe for "Tally's Tropical Sundaes", which sounds delicious by the way, is this going to be something you do with each book? If so, I can see one dear husband wanting me to buy more books!

Wendy: Trust me, that ginger-lime-coconut sauce is highly addictive (great for dressing up carrot cake, too!). There will be recipes for ice cream goodies in every book, all using store-bought ice cream and all designed so even "can't boil water" cooks can craft something company-worthy.

So dear readers, what is your favorite ice cream and/or toppings? Wendy is going to give away a signed copy of I SCREAM, YOU SCREAM to one lucky commenter.

Name Your Poison

by Cassondra Murray

Is it Rocky Road? Pralines & Cream? Or perchance..Strawberry Cheesecake?

Double Chocolate Chunk or Gold Medal Ribbon?

Sidle up to the bar in the lair and order one. Make it a double (scoop, that is).

Hey, we never said alcohol was the only scandal served at the Bandit Bar.

Ice cream and me, we go way back.

My mom went to church three times a week. Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night prayer meetin'. Most of the time I was forced to attend these three (*cough* boring *cough*) services along with her. But every now and then I'd get a reprieve.

My dad, you see....well...he had no use for church. Never saw him in one. Didn't mean he didn't have faith. Just meant he didn't like church. My mom didn't drive at that time, and my dad would drive her in to the services. So when I was about three, I figured out that on Wednesday nights when we'd head out to prayer meetin', if I begged hard enough, I'd get to stay with my dad instead of going with my mom.

This was a good thing.

What did my dad DO while my mom was in prayer meetin'?

He went to the pool room to shoot pool. And he took me.

First we'd go in, and the regular fellas would all ask me how I was doin'. I'd tell 'em I was doin' fine. Then we'd go up to the counter and I could have a hot dog or a hamburger and a small coke. Then I sat in one of the armchairs on the side of the room right beside the table where my dad would play pool. Now that I'm older, I realize that he put me there so that I was never out of his sight, but I didn't know that then. Then, at age four, this part of my world was good.

I watched while my dad chose a pool stick and proceeded to play. I don't remember whether he won or lost. I was too busy getting an education in male behavior. Now as I look back, I also realize that all those guys straightened up their acts and cleaned up their language just for me. And it was quite a gift, getting to spend prayer meetin' night in the small-town equivalent of the men's club. As I ate my burger and drank my coke, I'd plan what I'd get for dessert. Once my dad hung up his pool stick and we said our goodbyes, we climbed in his truck and drove around the square and down the hill to see his best friend and hunting buddy, Merle.

Merle owned the Dairy Queen.

The Dairy Queen in our town was about the size of a Dixie cup. No lie. It was tiny. About three employees could fit inside and then it was crowded. The DQ was basically a box made of windows, and it set at the bottom of the big hill a block from the town square on Jamestown Street. Yes, the square with the courthouse in the center and the clock on top. It's true. I lived in a cliche.

You had to walk up to the DQ window to order. The thing I remember most clearly was the giant plastic ice cream cone (complete with the fancy little twirl on top) in the window. It was enormous. But it had a seam going up the side. Even at age four, I saw that seam as a dead giveaway. That cone was not real. But what it represented? THAT was real. The perfect cone.

I also recognized the immense skill level necessary to make the "poofs" on the real ice cream cones just above the wafer cups, and then to put that little twisty-twirl right on the top? Not everyone had the gift of the twirl.

You could always tell when they hired new people. The poof was never right. It was lopsided. And new people never added the twirl. Obviously, the twirl was the hardest part of making an ice cream cone. There's one bad thing about working in a box made of windows. Everybody in town gets to see you try--and fail--at making the "ice cream cone twirl".

As I grew older, they stopped adding the twirl. It was a sign, to me, of the lack of ambition and onset of good-for-nothing-ness in the population of teenagers in our town. I mean, really, if you're getting ice cream from DQ, it bloody well ought to have a twirl on top.

I always got a strawberry sundae. I was a tiny little thing at age four. Short for my age, and blonde. (Yes, I was once blonde. Go figure.) And I ate the whole thing. I think that was the beginning of my true love affair with ice cream. By the time I was six, I'd moved on to the banana split. By that point I was an afficianado of soft-serve ice cream.

I have no idea when some angel from God first shoved a bit of ice cream into my mouth, but it had to be a cataclysmic moment. A life was changed. I saw the LIGHT, BABY.

I moved on from that first, unremembered bite, to the developmental stage (sundaes and the banana splits), and finally to the pinnacle of DQ delights....the parfait.

To this day, I still see the light. I've broadened my horizons and I've tried all kinds. But I'm true to my own north star...it guides me back, regularly, to the Baskin Robbins or the DQ.

I love Baskin Robbins many choices of flavors, and their seasonal specialties like eggnog ice cream. Yummmm.

But if it's a banana split I want, nothing will do but Dairy Queen. Nobody does soft-serve like DQ.

I've tried soft-serve at all kinds of places. There's a little "box of windows" in a town near me. It's called the Frosty Freeze. It lures me sometimes, but the ice cream is sort of...well...mealy. It's like you can taste the sugary grit in the ice cream. I'm sorry if I seem judgemental, but...well...it's sub-standard.

Still, I like walking up to the window and ordering from teenagers, just the way the generation before me, and the generation before them, walked up to that same window and ordered from the people who were teenagers then. Maybe that's why I like those places so much. Getting ice cream there makes me a bit of that town's history.

Yes, I've dawdled with the newfangled shops with the marble slabs--the ones that let you watch while they smoosh all kinds of goodies into the scoop of whatever you want and serve it up to you deliciously unfinished and raw....for $5 per scoop.

And yes, I dropped my money on the table and took their ice cream and LOVED IT. But I looked squinty eyed at them as I slurped. Okay it was good. Okay. It was ungodly good. But since it was double the price, when the temptors went the way of all stupidly overpriced places in our town, I was happy to go back to the thirty-onederful flavors at Baskin Robbins, and to my old standby, Dairy Queen.

My banana splits are made in the traditional way. Strawberry, chocolate, and pineapple syrups, no whipped cream, no nuts. Just like the ones I got from Merle's DQ at the bottom of the hill. Nuts are nice and all, but on a banana split? For me, they're just wrong.

I've shot a few games of pool since I sat in that armchair and watched my dad. I suppose it didn't affect me. I suppose it was fate that made me the pool champ at my first two-year college. (Fate and a guy named Glen, who taught me how to slice a ball into the corner and how to cuss like a sailor.)

Ice cream is still a perfect ending to an evening of such debauchery.

Tonight it was a scoop of Nutty Coconut, plus a quart of Strawberry Cheesecake, and one of plain vanilla, so that later, I can make a sundae with fresh strawberries (a gift from some Amish friends--it's strawberry season in Kentucky).

What about you, Bandits and Buddies?

Do you like ice cream? How much?

What would you choose? Let's tally the score.

What kind--hard ice cream (scooped, like Baskin Robbins) or soft-serve?

And what about those hoity toity marble slab places? Do you like those?

But now for the real questions:

What flavor?

What do you like on your banana splits?

Oh, and ....ahem....nuts, or no nuts?

Name your poison.