Eating for the ice cream impaired…

I’ve been getting outside more often than ever, walking my dog, running errands and exploring my neighborhood and as much as I am enjoying all this time outside…it’s friggin’ hot out there!  Last week, I went to the Crescent City Farmers Market with my friend Dani and we shopped (I got sunflowers!), taking a total of perhaps thirty minutes.  When I got home I developed a headache, felt pretty woozy and nauseous and then wanted to pass out.  In other words, I got heat stroke!  From a half of an hour in the sun?  Really?

Anyhow, with the sudden onslaught of heat we’ve been feeling the last few days, it seems I can think of little else but ice cream.  I get an image in my head of strolling languidly through my neighborhood, licking on a large scoop balanced atop a sugar cone, so absorbed in its creamy coolness that I’m not really paying attention to where I am going or how long it’s going to take to get there. This wonderful daydream slowly melts away when I remind myself that I can’t have any!  Well, at least not ’till Thursday.

So what else can I do but write about it?

I have a proposal.  How about if I recommend the first few ice cream* sources in New Orleans that pop into my head and y’all can go get some and tell me about it?  That way, I can enjoy the delicious ice cream experience vicariously through you. It’ll be like volunteering to read for the visually impaired! You don’t even have to take my recommendations, just tell me about an incredible ice cream experience.  Deal?

My first stop would have to be Creole Creamery on Prytania.  When I think ice cream, that is usually the first place to pop into my head.  What truly makes it a winner is the creativity of Chef Bryan Gilmore.  I never knew ice cream could come in flavors like Cucumber-Dill, Pistachio Curry or Strawberry Jalapeno Cheesecake and taste fantastic!  They offer simpler flavors too (which are equally delicious), but it’s better to come here and test your limits.  I could go for a scoop of Salted Caramel right now…

Believe it or not, I have to say I get a massive hankering for Peanut Butter and Chocolate ice cream from Baskin Robbins.  I can’t help it!  I know it’s a chain but that particular flavor haunts me!  Something about the thick ribbons of peanut butter probably, digging through the rich chocolate to discover those veins of peanut paradise is one of my favorite pastimes.  I know, I need help.

The final option would be to walk into Rouses and grab a couple of pints from New Orleans Ice Cream Co.  My favorite flavors so far are Creole Cream Cheese, Coffee & Chicory and Cajun Rum Raisin, but all of them are delicious and readily available.  I can even get a pint from the 24-hour Walgreens when I get that ice cream ache late at night.

So get out there all of you who are ice cream enabled!  Eat some delicious, creamy ice cream and come tell me about it.  Spare no detail, I want to know what you smelled, tasted and felt.  I want to know if you laughed or cried, exalted in the ecstasy that is ice cream or even rushed headlong into the adventure and ended up with a bad case of brain freeze!  Enjoy your ice cream episode and share it with me, pretty please?