People said that certain food can bring back memories of the past. Whenever I'm at Ralph's Ices, my two fondest memories of eating ice cream all came back to me. One was when I was a child in Vietnam and that my dad took us kids to this ice cream parlor. I remember the place was big and cold with mirrors all around it. Each of us had a scoop of ice cream in our glass cup with a long spoon. I couldn't remember now what flavor it was or how it tasted like but at that time, when I was 6 or 7 years old, the taste was indescribeable. I never had tasted anything like that before. I wanted to savor each spoonful of ice cream that I licked. Between each lick, I took a sip of the cold iced water which kissed my tongue, leaving a tinkling sensation. I remember I felt so small sitting in the chair with the long spoon in a big cold place with mirrors but I didn't care because I was enjoying every moment of it. For the longest time I kept that memory sacred and to myself, not knowing if it was mine or someone had told me about it or I've seen it somewhere else like in a movie. Only recently, last summer when my parents came to Long Island for 3 months to help us with our newborn baby, I wanted to ask my dad for validation. When and where to ask him was so important to me at the time because if I have been waiting for this long to find out, I thought that at least I can set it up the way it should be no matter what is the outcome. It was early September and we just finished dinner. He and I went outside and sat on the deck to cool off, the baby was inside napping, and my mom was washing dishes in the kitchen. I started off talking about my earliest memories of Vietnam, him taking us to the beach, catching catfishes at his friend's boathouse. And then I told him about the ice cream parlor and then he chimed in and started railing off about how they had the best ice cream in town. Suddently, I felt a light breeze coming from the oak trees and I couldn't hear anything else what he said. My tongue was tinkling again.The second fondest memory was when I was an undergrad student at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. The first signs of spring were when cherry blossom and magnolias blooming, birds chirping, couples holding hands, and frisbees flying on the lawn. You know the long spell of winter is gone and summer is an inch away. You also know it is spring when Del's Frozen Lemonade truck parked on the street outside of the Green. Del's Frozen Lemonade is not just any lemonade with ice. It has lemon rind bits inside. After drinking a cup of Del's feels like you're biting into a real lemon with all its juice and flavor without squinting your eyes. It's refreshing and addictive. How to drink a Del's would require some skills. No spoon or straw is necessary but you have to know the art of squeezing the cup without tearing it into pieces before you're done drinking it. Sometimes I cheated by using my fingers to scoop out the last few rind bits left inside the cup. Walking from one class to another across the campus, a cup of Del's frozen lemonade in my hand, savoring every rind bit in my mouth, feeling bubbling and alive, like the birds and the flowers.
There are 30 stands of Ralph's Italian Famous Ices in Long Island and a few in New York City and New Jersey. They offer a long list of flavors from Italian ices to sherbet to ice cream, ranging from canoli to chocolate macroroon. The one that I usually go to is in Patchogue, behind Main Street, stuck between a bank and a laundromat. It's more like a shed or stand, which most of Ralph's Ices stores look like. The murals on the outside walls have whimsical images of the seas. A few tables with umbrellas are set for customers. The stand opens from May until November. Usually there is a banner in April which gives update when it will be opened. Sometimes if spring comes early or an unexpected warm weekend, then it would open. My husband and I usually swing by on the weekends to check on the latest update. When it's opened, a long line would form, kids from the nearby library, those waiting for their laundries, those heading to the beach. The beach is less than ten minutes away. Sometimes we buy two cups of ice cream and rush to the Mascot Dock to eat while enjoying the bay view. My all-time favorite flavor is peanut butter -- you could taste the peanut butter in the ice cream -- creamy and nutty. I have also tried other flavors like pistachio to pina colada, which have real nutty and fruity flavors. On some weekends in the summer, it has a one-person band playing a guitar and singing some oldie songs. You can't get live entertainment like anywhere else. I'd be sitting under the umbrella spooning away my peanut butter as Billy Joe's "Piano Man" strumming away. Whenever my family or friends came to visit me, I'd take them to Ralph's Ices for a treat -- either after a canoe trip on the Connetquot River or at the end of an RV trip to Vermont to see the foliage. I started to realize that I wanted to share with others the experience by taking them to Ralph's Ices and hope that they would cherish those memories as much as I have, like the tingling sensation lingering on my tongue.
With so many home-made ice cream stores in Long Island, I haven't stepped my foot inside Carvel or TCBY since I moved here. Here's a few worthwhile ice cream stores for tasting (unfortunately, I couldn't remember the names of the stores):
Snow White Home-made Ice Cream (Port Jefferson)
After a seafood dinner at a restaurant, we usually stroll along the dock, like most summer tourists, licking our home-made green tea ice cream.
Shirley (on Montauk Highway)
I met the owner once and I asked him how he makes his ice cream because it's very creamy. He told me how much milk and butter he put into it -- which was a lot! He told me if I'm eating ice cream, I shouldn't be thinking about dieting.