Out, cold

It started slowly, but now I am addicted. Many years ago, when I was a mere babe-in-arms, my parents battled to feed me ice cream. In the struggle, they were exhausted, wiped out by the extent of the fighting and yelling and forcing that they had to do to get a little of the cold sweet down my throat. But then, serendipitously almost, they managed to sneak a tiny smidgen past my incipient milk teeth and that, my friends, was that. I have not given up looking for the dessert since.

It started with the basic of plain vanilla, common garden, nothing particularly spectacular. Then it gradually developed into more, with chocolate overtaking that to top the list. I never really did get too experimental or adventurous, because I did not need to, did not want to and did not ever become brave enough to cross the lines. I did go overboard occasionally and find myself unable to deal with the quantity of chocolate ice cream that my mind believed to be optimal, but that was rare – in fact, it may have happened once, a story that will be told anon.

Perhaps my favourite memory of cold stuff is sitting on the stairs of our house in Maryland, watching something monumental unfolding on television. We had just discovered the dairy at the University and had stocked up our freezer with nicely-sized tubs of frozen dessert. I sat there, peering at the TV (I have a vague suspicion that I was supposed to be upstairs in my room dealing with homework or something equally traumatic) and spooning up sweet heaven – it was thick, it was creamy, it was just plain delicious, the only way for a finely honed taste in ice cream to travel.

Many years later, when I was in college in New York (the state, not the city), I was introduced to frozen yoghurt. It was an odd concept, but for me it worked, since it was lighter and less sweet and cloying than regular ice cream, and it hit the perfect spot when you wanted cold refreshment and not the fallout of biliousness and hyperactivity. And it tasted better than usual, because it was dished out by my ‘little brother’ Robby, who managed a chain of the stores on Long Island. In fact, I still have a couple of store-logo keychains that he gave me then!

But it was frozen yoghurt that did the aforementioned defeating of my capacity to go through ice cream. I was in college in Colorado at the time, living in a small (and, after my home turf of Mumbai) very hick town called Boulder. Perhaps the charm of the place was in its ultra-granola culture, where former flower children mingled quite coherently with new-age gurus who ate granola and believed in weaving their own woollen garments (and, often, selling then at some horrendously over-inflated price, of course) that they wore in conjunction with clunky Pedestrian sandals and hear done in bead-braids. There was a frozen yoghurt shop in the middle of the cobbled-street mall and we went in there quite often to cool off, or just indulge in a little superfluous calori-bashing.

I was there with friend Karen and demanded their Death by Chocolate. It may, of course, have been called something else, but it was almost the death of me and chocolate beyond any conceivable doubt. It started with a layer of brownie. Atop was a slab of chocolate, shaved into substantial spirals. Then followed a thick slather of chocolate sauce, with chocolate nuggets (or was it chunks? Chips?) over that, then a couple of scoops of chocolate frozen yoghurt. Then a repeat, if I remember right. And, over the whole arrangement, a generous pour of chocolate fudge sauce and a handful of chocolate shavings. I got through about half of it. And I had to yell Uncle, Aunt and every cousin on any block, ever. I could not take any more.

It is perhaps still spoken of, albeit in hushed voices, in my small circle of friends.