Sunday, May 3, 2009

Nothing says summer like ice cream

After last weekend's hot spell, I've suddenly been in the mood for all things summer - margaritas, hanging out on a patio, running outside...and ice cream. I'm a big fan of ice cream. Preferably locally produced ice cream. I typically order traditional ice cream - i.e. the kind that has delicious mix ins like fudge brownies or peanut butter. But when it gets really hot out, there's nothing better than a nice soft serve cone.

When I was a kid, my mother used to take me to
Martin's in Euclid. To my knowledge, it's still open. It's a little ice cream shack with mainly soft serve, milk shakes, and sundaes. I'd always get the vanilla soft serve cone. Sugar cone, to be more specific. Those cake cone things don't do anything for me. Once in awhile I'd get my ice cream dipped in chocolate. (To this day, I'm still amazed at how they're able to do that. ) It made my cone so much messier but it was so good.

Another place that my mom and I used to frequent was Foster's Homemade Ice Cream in Willoughby Hills. I happened to be in the neighborhood the other day and had to stop by to see if it was as good as I remembered. As I drove up to Foster's, I was a little sad to see that the building looked basically the same - just a little more...um...weathered. I walked in the door and wasn't so surprised to see that the inside of this little ice cream parlor looked and smelled the same way it had 15 years earlier. (including a freezer case full of frozen cakes and ice cream cone clowns that looked exactly like the ones I'd drooled over years before) The soft serve machine was still front and center so I ordered a small vanilla in a dish. It stinks to be a calorie conscious adult sometimes.


It was raining, otherwise I would have sat on one of the picnic benches outside and watched the traffic go by on route 6. Instead, I sat in my car and devoured my ice cream. It was as good as I remembered. (My childhood memory can remain untarnished. Hooray!) The reason why I always liked Fosters' ice cream was that it tasted like whipped cream - so sweet and fluffy.


If you live remotely close to Willoughby Hills, you owe it to yourself to check out Foster's. Support the little guy and get some fantastic ice cream in the process.

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