Hooray For National Ice Cream and Daiquiri Day
A Day to Honor Sugar-Filled, Happy Memories
Happy National Ice Cream and Daiquiri Day!
When I saw what “national days” today was honoring, both of the celebrated items brought back childhood memories.
Now, before you freak out about daiquiris bringing back childhood memories-don’t worry-they were “virgin” daiquiris.
When I was a kid, my dad was a resident manager at a hotel chain, so that meant he would have to stay a few nights at the hotel and our family would make a little vacation out of it. At the pool, they had a tiki-style bar and that’s where I was introduced to banana daiquiris-without alcohol of course. So basically a banana slushy of sorts. I now prefer crisp, minty mojitos over those banana slushies.
When I think of those times, I just remember sunshine, smiles, family and no cares in the world because I was still a kid. We would go for walks along the docks and watch the crabs sitting on the rocks. It was San Diego-and the hotel was located along a harbor, where my brother and I loved running up and down the walks that led to the boats.
Ice Cream-the memories I recall again involve my family. My dad would take my brother, sister, and myself to Baskin Robbins and I would always get the bubblegum ice cream-every single time. I don’t know why because the actual pieces of gum in it were like rocks-but it was what I always wanted.
I can remember my dad would get pralines and cream. I can’t believe I still remember that, since it was like 30 years ago. Next to the ice cream shop, we had a Dunkin Donuts, and back then they had rum balls. My dad would pick up a little order of those and let us each have one. To this day I love rum balls and rum cakes.
“Without ice cream, there would be darkness and chaos.” Don Kardong
The other ice cream memory from childhood that I have, is every year around Christmas, my dad would take each of us kids out separately and do our Christmas shopping for our mom. He made it a special outing for each of us. He would always take us to the mall and end the day at Farrell’s restaurant.
I always looked forward to that day each year. We would each have a rootbeer float, and I can still remember how the vanilla ice cream would get kind of crunchy with ice on the edges from the rootbeer.
I can even hear the music from the player piano and remember how I loved watching the programmed paper roll through it. I thought it was the neatest thing back then.
And of course, what kid could resist the candy shop on one end of the shop? My dad would let us get jawbreakers and can you believe-candy cigarettes? Complete with chalky sugar on them so that it would act like smoke? Wow-so not ok now but back then it wasn’t a biggie.
Now that our family is all grown up, on special occasions I make bananas foster on top of vanilla bean ice cream. It has to be vanilla bean-the flavor really pops against the delectable, melty blend of hot bananas, rum, and brown sugar. Yumm!
So, it seems that both national days bring me back to fun family times that my dad would bring about.
Both days involve a celebration of sugar. And really, a day that involves both rum and ice cream can’t be bad. At least not in my book.
