A visit to Christina’s for ice cream
It is a tradition that when I visit my friends in Cambridge, we all go to Christina’s Homemade Ice Cream, which, in my view, is the best place in America to get the stuff. Not only is it truly homemade on the premises, but it’s fantastic and creamy AND comes in a gazillion flavors. They had 45 flavors of ice cream yesterday and additional flavors of sorbet.
When you see the selection below, you’ll see the difficulty of choosing a flavor. This time I had a lot of trouble, as they had my favorite flavor (burnt sugar, which is ethereal) but there was so much more!
Some photos:
The entrance, same as in years past:
A panorama of the inside (click to enlarge), which also never changes. (There is only one store.) Betsy can be seen eating at the left side, while the ice cream selection is on the striped board to the right:
Below: the Big Board (click to read)! There were 45 flavors yesterday. Some of the ones I considered ordering included mango, burnt sugar (the best!), sweet cream (yes, that’s what you taste), ginger, ginger molasses, chocolate lavender, chocolate banana, malted vanilla, banana cinnamon, dulce de leche, chocolate Chinese five spice, and orange pineapple. In truth, I would want them all!
Please put in the comments which ones you’d order (maximum three flavors). You can have them in either a cone or a dish, but cones are drippy and it was hot yesterday. Plus my theory is that you get more if you get it in a dish.
Tim always gets the same thing: mint chocolate chip, and I always razz him about it. And he gets only one scoop, even when I’m paying!
Betsy got two scoops of salted caramel; I consider it a great shame not get only one flavor if you get two scoops, but at least it was an excellent choice of flavor:
My haul: three scoops. From nine o’clock clockwise: sorghum ginger snap, green tea, and adzuki bean. The sorghum ginger snap was just as you might expect: a superb Indian Pudding of ice cream. And when I get green tea, I always get adzuki bean, as it makes a nice Japanese combination of flavors. They were all terrific, though I much mourned the absence of burnt sugar. If you go to Cambridge, you must go to Christina’s and get that flavor, which they always have.
Me and my haul. I’m a happy complacent man! (For a lugubrious Jew, complacency is the highest state of being.)
When you go to Christina’s and order burnt sugar ice cream, tell them that Jerry sent you. They’ll have no idea what you’re talking about.