Peanut Butter Paradise
Every ice cream Nico tried disappointed. They were all pale imitations of that one perfect taste he had loved so much as a boy. He had spent his life searching for it, only to meet failure after failure. Eventually, he stopped eating ice cream at all.
He remembered Lily, his babysitter and first crush, bringing him a scoop of peanut-butter ice cream every time she came. He would pray for his parents to go out so he could taste it again. He tried to talk Lily into telling him where she bought it, but she would just smile and run her fingers across her lips, miming zipping them shut.
When Lily’s family moved to Toronto, Nico’s supply had dried up. He tried every ice cream shop in the city. Though some of them sold peanut butter ice cream, none of it came even close to Lily’s.
Twenty years and a lot of disappointing ice cream later, Lily had moved back to town. She had looked the family up and Nico’s mom had given her his number. Nico couldn’t believe how nervous he was to see her again. He also couldn’t believe she was a physicist with a big research company or that she was divorced with two kids.
Nico was just checking on the spaghetti sauce he had made for dinner when the doorbell rang. He set the lid back on the pot and rushed to the door. When he opened it, Lily stood there, looking exactly as he remembered her. Or maybe his mind had melded her old look with her photos on Facebook.
They looked at one another for a moment, then hugged around a very full bag hanging at Lily’s side. Lily laughed, saying, “A little different from the days when you’d jump into my arms, huh?”
Nico’s eyes crinkled as he smiled, remembering how short he’d been, though only four years younger than Lily. “Just a little.”
“Oh,” Lily said, pulling the bag strap over her shoulder. “I almost forgot, I brought this for you. Your mom said you really missed it.”
Nico watched her reach into the bag, confused until he saw what she brought out. “Is that…”
“Yep. Peanut-butter ice cream.” Lily handed Nico a large plastic container. “Better get it into the freezer. We can have some for dessert.”
“Are you crazy?” Nico grabbed a spoon and savored a single mouthful before reluctantly putting the rest into the freezer. “It’s just as good as I remember. You’ve got to tell me where you got it. I’ve never been able to find it.”
Lily laughed as she lifted the lid off the spaghetti pot and took in a big breath. “That’s your mom’s spaghetti recipe.”
“It is.”
“I can’t believe you’ve never figured it out.”
“Figured what out?”
“My mom made the ice cream. Now I make it for my kids. They love it just as much as you did.”
“No wonder I couldn’t find it. I guess that’s it, then. I’ll just have to marry you if I want more.”
“Or I could just give you the recipe.”
“Or that.”
As Nico and Lily shared dinner and dessert that night, they started to create their own recipe for a lifelong love.
A sweet story. I also like how it came full circle. But a memory of mine. When my girls were small, I had an overripe watermelon. Since I didn't have a lot of money, nothing went to waste so I pulverized and strained it and then froze the juice in plastic popsicle containers. They not only loved it, they tried buying some and, of course, nothing tasted as good as their memory of those homemade ones.
Nico's love of peanut butter ice cream reminds me of my search for banana ice cream from Islay's in Pennsylvania. I have only found it twice since childhood. Islay's was also known for chip chopped ham, which is very thinly sliced ham. I don't eat ham anymore, but I have found banana split ice cream on the west coast.