Bad ice cream names

Double Dysentery Chip
Malted Mold
Chewy Chocolate 'n Chicken Bits
Beriberi
Cat Leavings 'n Cream
Cherry Hernandez
Triple Scab Crunch
Rocky Choad
Banana Sludge Swirl
Sherbet

Bad Apple

Waxy, not the kind that's obvious, but the kind you find out after you've already taken a bite, and remains on your tongue, unyielding. A roundness that gives way to unexpected mealiness under your teeth. You spit it out, then throw it in the garbage where it makes a satisfying thud as it hits the bottom. It still had a sticker on it when you took a bite, what made you think it would be different from any of a thousand tasteless red apples you've subjected yourself to over the course of a lifetime? Who thinks of these things? Why hasn't there been a Great Red Apple Uprising? There are many delicious apples out there, and none of them come from Jewel. You knew this but somehow the hum of the fluorescent lighting, the mist of the automatic spray machines, and the piped in recording of "singin' in the rain" suckered you in, once again.

How I spent thirty nine dollars and fifteen cents today.

"I'm going to Cermak to get ingredients for The Recipe", I said.
"The Recipe?" my husband asked, voice rising, "I've been waiting for The Recipe for weeks!"

Sometimes when I'm at Cermak Produce, a local grocery store that caters to the Central and South American populations in our neighborhood, I'll see an ingredient that piques my interest and buy it, thinking I'll find a way to incorporate it into a meal somehow. Recently I picked up a can of hominy that had a drawing of a dark-haired woman in a Mexican hat, smiling and looking sideways at something out of frame that only she could see. "Adelita Pozole Blanco", the label read, and I was sold. I'd recently been fed hominy by friends who knew what it was and how to cook with it, so I felt confident. I went onto epicurious.com and typed in "hominy", and scrolled past all the difficult looking recipes until I found one called Southwestern Black Bean And Hominy Salad. It looked simple enough so I printed it, and left it on the desk by the computer for three weeks. I put The Recipe in my purse, and left the house.

The first order of things was Walgreen's, where I had an overdue prescription to pick up. M wanted ice cream, "real ice cream", as he put it, not the off-brand stuff I'd brought home from Cermak last week. He'd wanted chocolate ice cream and the only brand Cermak carries is called Joe & Ross, which is made in Cicero, and tastes slightly of paper pulp. When you scrape away a layer, the ice cream underneath is a lighter color than on top, and I'm not sure what this means. Our Walgreen's carries Ben & Jerry's, so I picked up a pint of Chubby Hubby for M, and a pint of Häagen-Dazs coffee ice cream for me.

Next I stopped by the photo supplies and frames aisle, where a middle-aged man clapped his hands and pulsed back and forth in time with the overhead music, an easy listening version of an early Ohio Players song. I wanted a cheap frame for a napkin that had been decorated with rude drawings a few summers ago when Holly and Jeremy came over for dinner. On it were depicted the full range of outline drawings that might be found in the spiral-bound notebook of a seventh grade boy: a W, depicting someone's rear end, expelling flatus represented by four straight lines leading to a small cloud; two concave lines representing a woman's torso, with one breast that looked like an eyeball, and the other obscured by a Kermit the frog-like hand; the profile of a goateed man with an X for an eye, drinking from a beer bong that was held magically in the air by no one, a bottle with an X on the label pouring liquid into the top of the funnel; and finally, not one but two depictions of hands flashing the symbol for "the shocker", one clad in a leather spiked bracelet, the other with curved lines around the thumb and pinkie, indicating movement. The napkin had decorated our refrigerator for some time, and then in preparation for a visit from M's parents had been moved into a kitchen drawer. Holly and Jeremy are getting married this summer, and we've been accumulating gifts appropriate for the occasion. I found an 8" x 10" frame for $4.49, and placed the two pints of ice cream on top of it like a tray.

I made my way to the pharmacy, where I gave my name to the the mild mannered, balding pharmacist.

"Chubby Hubby," he said looking at my groceries, and then chuckled.
"Yeah, ha ha," I said.
"Is that your favorite flavor?"
"Uh, no, funnily enough it's my husband's favorite," I said. He scanned my prescription across the electronic eye of the register, then the two pints of ice cream, and the picture frame; my total was $17.08.

Next stop was Cermak. I walked through Walgreen's sliding doors and headed south, passing a darkened storefront with bags of grain in the window. "The Oriental Store" was printed on its green awning, and taped to the inside of the window were three pieces of paper that read:

3
Horse
17.99

At Cermak I got the remaining ingredients for The Recipe: an avocado, cilantro, yellow peppers, a jalapeño pepper, and a tub of green salsa marked with a bright orange sticker reading: "Hot", to distinguish it from its neighbor, guacamole, similarly labeled: "Mild." In addition, I picked up a bunch of bananas, and a mango with a sticker that read "Estrellita", simply because I thought it was a cute name. M and I took a Spanish class about a year ago, and I'm still in the phase of learning the language where the sounds of certain words delight me. When Cermak first opened, a cashier gave me my total in Spanish, and I was thrilled.

"She spoke Spanish to me!" I said to M, "do I look Hispanic today?"
"Well," he said, surveying me up and down, "you don't look un-Hispanic."

I brought my items to a checkout lane, and waited my turn. Above the belt were impulse items, and I was distracted by a chocolate bar named "Kranky" that had a picture of a happy K with a smiling face on it. The woman in front of me was buying Mexican hot dogs in shrink-wrapped packaging that read "Fud". Finally it was my turn, and my items totaled $12.07.

Julius Meinl

Living on the first floor of a one hundred year old house, it never gets as warm indoors as it is outside. This is a blessing when it’s ninety degrees and humid, but sometimes on a lazy Saturday morning in April when I just can’t find a reason to get out of bed, by the time I finally stick my head out a window I realize I've missed out on a gorgeous morning. Today was one of those days (meaning forty nine degrees and sunny), so I put some air in my tires and went on an errand.

I biked to the Chopping Block in Lincoln Square and registered for a knife skills class I’ve been meaning to sign up for. My friend and hairdresser Mark had already signed up, and over my last haircut we’d discussed it. I’ve always wanted to take their knife skills class; I can cut my way around a kitchen, but not with anything resembling skill, and more than once my fingernails have saved me from certain disaster.

I’m alternately captivated and disgusted by the Chopping Block, with their neat displays of expensive cookware and spotless demonstration kitchen. I can’t decide if I’m intimidated by it, annoyed by its upscale air and high prices, or just jealous that my kitchen doesn’t look like theirs. A class was in progress when I walked in, and a panel of students sat in rapt attention, following the instructions of a confident woman in a tall chef’s hat. I didn’t have the nerve to sign up for a class by myself, but with Mark already registered, I was in. If nothing else, it will be a tale of excitement and danger to regale people with.

It was crowded inside the small store. I was dressed in sweatpants covered in cat hair, a matching cat hair sweatshirt, and a dirty red bandanna on my head with the image of Teddy Roosevelt’s face on the border, the better to cover the shame of helmet head. I stood in line at the checkout counter, and was seemingly ignored by the cashier. I had nothing in my hands, and it may have appeared as though I was simply loitering, or had no place better to go given my appearance. A girl with a name tag that identified her as Margaret finally made her way behind the register and asked if I needed anything. She wore a gray cap that reached halfway down her ears and was flat on top. It was kind of a cross between an Amish bonnet and a chef’s hat, and it left an inch or so of her amber colored hair hanging below her ears. She wore a miniature Eiffel tower pendant around her neck, and suddenly I wished I’d made more of an effort to look presentable, or that I had at least taken a shower before leaving the house.

After registering for the class I got back on the bike to look for a friendly coffee shop. I went to a writer’s retreat last weekend, and one of the pieces of advice I took note of was to find a coffee shop with a relaxed atmosphere where I can sit writing at a table for a while undisturbed. Staying at home is full of pitfalls and distractions, like the internet, and going to the same place to write will help establish a routine.

Café Selmarie was packed, as was the Daily Grind. I headed south to Montrose and looked in at Julius Meinl. To my surprise, there were free tables. I walked in and was greeted by a hostess, and was seated immediately. I have fond memories of Julius Meinl, it’s where T and I sat basking in the afterglow of November 4^th, sipping tea and discussing What This Meant for America. Despite a framed, business card sized sign on the table reading: “as a courtesy to customers waiting to be seated during high volume weekends, we ask that you please limit your reading, studying, and computer activities. Thank you, your consideration is greatly appreciated”, there seemed to be plenty of space. Perhaps I had found my writing spot. I ordered a cappuccino and a butter croissant, and wrote until my hand cramped up.

Barb, in under three hundred words.

“These are so good; we used to drink these in rehab.” Barb threw this kind of information into our conversations with the same casual air she used when telling me there were leftover pastries in the breakroom. I don’t know if it was meant to shock me, or if it was the only way she could share those parts of her life. Sometimes it felt aggressive, a way to up the ante. I read "Bastard out of Carolina", and when I told her it was about a girl who’d been raped by the age of eleven, she barked “who hasn’t?”, took a drag off her cigarette, and cocked her head to one side before exhaling. I was never sure what subjects were safe to talk about and what was off limits, she was blind in one eye and I made the mistake of asking her which one it was. “I need to go to Costco to get a six pound bag of gummy bears,” was her answer. Costco was the Holy Grail to Barb. She came home with cases of off-brand soda, reams of cheap paper, and bundles of packing tape that ended up in boxes themselves and moved three times before she finally donated them to the Salvation Army. When the nearest Costco was replaced with a Jewel, she refused to call it by its new name. She once walked through its automatic sliding doors, stood on the rubber mat in the entryway, and yelled “Costcoooooooooooo” at the top of her lungs.

Things that can be seen from the window of the LIRR from Ronkonkoma to Flatbush

Central Island Juice

Wyandanch

Start A New Career With Gloria Francis Beauty School

God’s Way Auto Repairs

Mineola

Sleepy’s, The Mattress Professionals

a Polly-O Mozzarella truck

Victor Koening’s Restaurant

Jamaica

Samuel Underberg Grocers

99¢ Dreams

East New York

Rodless

Nostrand Avenue

Memories

Remember the time I biked all the way to the Green City Market and bought a half gallon of milk and a quart of yogurt from Blue Marble Dairy, who sell their goods in glass bottles, then biked all the way home again, the bottles sweating in the bag, me sweating on the bike?

Remember the time I sat on one of those fabric covered blue line seats, and halfway to work realized that there was something in the fabric that was making its way into my pants? I couldn't decide if it was gross enough to buy new ones, so I wore them all day.

Remember the time I wore knee socks to a writer's retreat because I thought I would be cold?

Remember the time I got hooked on Six Feet Under, and could watch an entire disc worth of episodes in one sitting?

Remember the time I was visiting New York, and was in a store with Sara, and when the saleswoman asked if I needed anything I went into an uncontrollable coughing fit and she had to go get me some water, and then I left without buying anything?

Remember the time that stupid Michael Jackson song kept getting stuck in my head?

Remember the time I still had it in my head the next time I tried to write something?

Remember the time Michael Jackson was still cute, and I had a copy of the Thriller LP, and when you opened it up there was a picture of him in a white suit, reclining in soft focus with two tiger cubs?

Remember the time I showed up an hour early because I hadn't set my clock back an hour?

Remember the time I was pick pocketed in the train station right after landing in Paris, and I had my friend's money in my wallet as well as my own?

Remember the time I couldn't stop scanning the streets, looking for the person who might try to rob me next?

Remember the time I ate six oranges in one sitting?

Remember the time Amanda bit into a green bean and found half a worm in it?

Remember the time I bought a yogurt at the 7-11 next to my office, and when I got back upstairs realized that the seal had been broken but ate it anyway?

Remember the time I ate fried grasshoppers because that's what all the boys were doing, and I decided that they tasted just like chicken?