Last week’s heat wave nearly did me in. If you’d dropped by on Wednesday or Thursday in the mid-afternoon, you would have found me face-up, gasping for air, like a fish out of water.
Extreme heat is my nemesis. Not only does it turn my face into an oil slick, it also zaps my will to do constructive work or think creative thoughts. It destroys my ability to be social or write blog posts. It renders me unable to sauté or steam or poach.
The menu last week at Chez Moi? Ice cream with a side of ice cream. For dessert, we’ll be serving…ice cream!
By Friday, I had devoured my whole stash of the frozen stuff and so, on tip from someone in the know, I drove out to Fairfax to find a little ice cream shop called Scoop. She said it was worth the drive; I was just happy for an excuse to sit inside an air-conditioned car.
Fairfax is a speck of a town, where the boys wear scuff-toed boots and
the girls sport wild tattoos. It has an groovy bookstore and a burrito
joint and a shop that sells incense and saris and wooden prayer beads.
And it has Scoop. Fairfax Scoop is about the size of a closet, with three tiny bistro tables, and a freezer counter where you can choose from 12 tubs of ice cream. They use organic milk and cream from Straus Family Creamery in all of their ice creams, and local fruits and flowers whenever possible. They also make delicious waffle cones just behind the counter; those boring, tasteless sugar cones are not an option.
Translation: yummy.
I chose a cone packed with honey vanilla lavender, their signature flavor, and took home a pint of raspberry, made with local raspberries from Mt. Barnabe Farms.
The verdict? Totally worth the drive.
Fairfax Scoop
63 Broadway
Fairfax, CA
415-453-3130
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A man breezes through the door of his home after a day spent in an air-conditioned office to find his usually perky darling lying in a heap on the floor, with a fan pointed at her face.
HE: Um… hello?
SHE: Mmmppf.
He circles, clearly bewildered.
HE: Sooo…. what’s for dinner?
SHE: Ice cream.
HE: Ah. I see.
He glances back down at her prostate figure; he can see his reflection in the sheen on her forehead.
HE: What did you have for lunch?
SHE: Ice cream. With an ice-cold BEER.
HE: (snort) Beer? You don’t drink beer!
SHE: When it gets hotter than 90 degrees, all bets are off. There’s no telling what I might do next.
HE: Redneck.
SHE: Love me or leave me, Bubba. The ice cream scoop is on the counter, right next to the bottle opener.
