Columns
Time Out: What My Kids Can Learn from Their Kids
By Cara Garretson
Politicians have so much to teach us, but these days it's the children of the pols who are making the headlines and teaching valuable lessons to our youth.
Movie Reporter: The Most Important Film of the Year
By Phil Boatwright
If you pass on Waiting For Superman because it's not about the superhero from Krypton, you'll skip the year's most significant film.
Here’s a Thought: Opening Act
By Taylor Mason
For those of you not familiar with how I roll: I’ve been a comedian for 25-plus years and been an “opening act” for a variety of performers. Some highlights. ...
Movie Reporter: A New Solution for an Old Problem
By Phil Boatwright
If you are familiar with my efforts as a film reviewer, you know how I feel about the use and abuse of language in the media. That makes TVGuardian and Phil Boatwright a perfect fit.
Here's a Thought: Death by Cancer
By Taylor Mason
My sister-in-law passed away last Thursday, felled by cancer after a seven-year battle. She was a dignified, lovely, inspiring wife and mother who beat the odds over and over again.
Time Out: I So Don’t ScreamJuly 19, 2010
By Cara Garretson
Ice cream, that quintessential summer treat loved by all. Except me. Don’t get me wrong, if there was nothing else to snack on in the house, I could polish off a pint of Ben and Jerry’s as fast as the next premenstrual mom. If my daughters can’t finish their ice cream, I will bravely take over the task (for the sake of the starving kids in … wherever). I even have a favorite ice cream flavor: coffee (because the good stuff tastes more like Starbucks than ice cream). But given my druthers, there are many other treats I would choose before ice cream. My List … (Remember the laminated lists that Ross and Rachel of Friends kept of famous people they were allowed to sleep with should they meet in real life? Well, I maintain a similar guilt-free list just in case I encounter certain desserts.) My List has vanilla sheet cake at No. 1. The top slots change all the time, but dark chocolate M&Ms and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups usually join sheet cake in the Top Five. Ice cream typically hovers around No. 10 on my List. I know I’m out-numbered; particularly in summer, when ice cream becomes an integral part of everyday life. Not convinced I’m in a lonely minority? Try this the next time your family finishes dinner and is looking for something to do:
Chances are you just aren’t going to generate the same enthusiasm from these suggestions as the traditional, “Let’s go for ice cream!” Then there’s the world of ice cream wannabe products that I’m just not sure of. Gelato, which I think in Italian means “over-priced ice cream,” often baffles me. I can see pistachio, but do flavors like egg, parsnip and artichoke really work as frozen treats? Sorbets are better, as they tend to stick to the fruit family, but sorbet never seems to fill me up; I can eat it until my teeth are frozen and my brain cramps up, but still my stomach thinks it’s had a handful of raspberries. Then there’s sherbet, which is kind of an ice cream-sorbet hybrid since it contains some dairy. But sherbet for me conjures up memories of my grandmother ordering rainbow sherbet (watermelon, orange, and lime flavored) instead of ice cream at Friendly’s in order to stick to her diet, insisting that I would prefer it, too. But sherbet is an utterly chocolate-free zone; unless I can put hot fudge on it, it’s just not for me. But I have found one ice cream auxiliary product that can make a trip to the ice cream shop worth it for me – the cone. Once a lonely inverted pyramid whose function (and taste) resembled a napkin, cones these days are jacked up. You can get them dipped in chocolate and topped with all sorts of goodies – Oreo crumbs, crushed Heath bars, rainbow or chocolate sprinkles (also known as jimmies to us New Englanders) … really, just about anything that sticks to melted chocolate can adorn a cone. And once you’ve got the right cone, do you really need the ice cream? So now when we do that summer ritual of going out for ice cream, I too can get excited and hope that my kids fill up on the ice cream and can’t finish their cones. Cara Garretson is a freelance writer based near Washington, D.C. is looking forward to fall, when candy corn climbs to the top of her List. Read more of Cara's Time Out columns:
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