• the217
• Food + Drink
• Freezing temperatures and ice cream daydreams

I don’t eat much ice cream in the winter. Who wants to eat something frozen when it’s frozen outside? I usually make up for lost time in the summer, however, when those soft-serve, seasonal ice cream stands open. I’m not alone, either. People really creep out of the woodwork to get that hot fudge sundae or banana split – even if it entails waiting in line in the sweltering heat and staring at an ugly clown façade. Ah, Americana.

But there always comes a time during the long Illinois winters that I jump (a little prematurely) into thinking about summer. I convince myself that the 40 degree day will be followed by even warmer weather, that I will soon be seeing buds on the trees, and that before I know it I’ll have the opportunity to complain about the relentless heat. Well, the time for irrational summer thoughts is upon me, and accompanying my dreams of hot sun are dreams of cold ice cream.

Specifically, the ice cream stand variety has entered my mind, and just to induce an even worse epidemic of spring fever, I want to reminisce about one of my most memorable experiences with summer soft-serve.

It was a humid August night. I was just two people away from the service window with my friend. It was near closing time, but the line at our favorite ice cream stand was still long, and after a seemingly endless wait we had finally made it to the front. The anticipation was apparent in the crowd of people around us, and most of the standees wore determined expressions. The chatter had died down as customers examined the stand’s many menus, facing the impossible choice that awaited them at the window.

My friend and I were ready. Brett had decided on a Nerds wizard made with strawberry soft-serve. I was feeling rather plain Jane, and had resolved to order a twist waffle cone. The couple in front of us had already paid and were waiting for the worker inside to reappear at the window with their goods. First, she handed the woman of the couple her medium cherry slush.

Those of us far enough up in the line let out a collective gasp of horror as the worker turned back into the stand instead of presenting the waiting man with his selection. More tense vibes flowed through crowd as we accepted that we would have to wait a little longer than expected. Luckily, the worker was back in a few short seconds.

We watched with bated breath as the worker tilted the large vanilla cone (which by my guess was a towering 14 inches tall) almost completely horizontal to fit it out of the window. When the monstrous cone was safely in the man’s hands, the crowd around the window exhaled in relief. That cone was unbelievable. The first person to break the silence was the woman in line behind Brett and me.

“What is that?” she asked. “A Hella-large?”

The crowd burst into a shower of comments and laughs. Indeed, the impossibly big cone was hella-large. We had just experienced an ice cream miracle.