Last night, as we waited on line behind ten other like-minded souls at Handel’s in Berwyn for a pint of Chocoholic Chunk — the greatest ice cream ever created, and no I am not taking questions on this — my mind wandered to summers as a kid growing up in the Boston area, heading to legendary ice cream shop Steve’s on a rainy summer night and finding a line that wrapped around the inside, out the door and around the corner. What is it about rain and ice cream?
In New England, they eat more of the stuff per capita than anywhere else in the States, so any excuse to go out for ice cream seems like a good one, but my experience at Handel’s had me wondering if this was more than a N.E. phenomenon. I broached the subject with the Mrs.: sure enough, she said, as a kid she got excited whenever there was a summer storm, because she knew that a trip to the Downingtown Tastee Freez was in order. (“To suck on some chili dogs?”, I asked instinctively).
In the end, we didn’t solve the mystery of ice cream and rain — we just enjoyed it.
Photo by Antanas Kaziliūnas