We All Scream for Ice Cream
Fran Schumer
Word Count 198
A very long time ago, I asked my mother if she would do me a favor.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“I’ve just gotten an assignment to find the best ice cream sundae in New York and I need you to help me.”
I called my mother for this particular assignment for several reasons. A born-again size six, she had lost thirty pounds on Weight Watchers in its nascent years and remained unwavering in her commitment to staying thin. Ice cream was still her great true love, and she indulged, but cautiously. She was also a great resource. Not only did she know the best places for sundaes in two of the five boroughs (her native Brooklyn, and Manhattan, home of Bergdorf Goodman, her other indulgence), but she knew people in the remaining three boroughs, also aficionados, who could supply the relevant information. I had many friends on whom I could have called, but the truth was even in my forties, I could not think of anyone I would rather traipse around the city with than my mother, the most lively, spirited, interesting, energetic, and fun-loving person I knew.
For three weeks, we two swept through the ice cream parlors of New York City, my mother sampling sundaes; I diligently scribbling notes. And what a scene we created: two slender women, ordering six or seven massive, dripping, runny, gooey sundaes, and rushing off after only a few bites. On several occasions, when she could no longer bear the pain of leaving so many sundaes uneaten, my mother turned to the crowd and, after explaining the nature of our mission, asked, “Would you like to finish the rest?” And often someone would.
After a week in which we’d burned more calories chasing sundaes than we’d consumed eating them, we sat down to tabulate our results. Licking a last spoonful of her favorite sundae (coffee ice cream with hot fudge), my mother turned to me, and said, “Are you sure I’m not dying of cancer, and this is your way of giving me a good last good day?”
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Fran is the former Underground Gourmet for New York Magazine and restaurant reviewer for the New Jersey section of the New York Times. Her mother, 94, and confined to a wheelchair, eats one Haagen Dazs ice cream bar a night. Sometimes two.