The Long Walk

Area Four

Today was supposed to be a “rest day” – in preparation for a big race this weekend – the concept of which I think I’ve forgotten nearly 60 days into my 10,000 step a day streak. I spend a lot of time thinking how to optimally operate as a human being, and for me, streaks are a particularly motivating way to instill good habits. 10,000 steps is sort of an arbitrary goal – in the past, I’ve done 10 minutes of exercise a day, 30 (60, and 90) days of eating mindfully, a mile a day running streak that lasted from Memorial Day to the 4th of July. With my Jawbone sleep tracking I’ve also been working to get in at least 7.5 hours a sleep a night, but haven’t managed to keep that one alive for more than a few days at a time, alas.

The side effect of having a daily step goal is that a mile or two extra a day comes naturally – you find yourself taking meandering routes in order to round out the step count. Suddenly the 10,000 step goal is well surpassed and you’re at 12, 13 or 15,000 steps, and you’ve walked the long way at the end of the evening from Boston to Harvard Square because the weather is so nice.

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Of course, there’s always room for a little reward – this gorgeous evening called for a micro scoop of Turkish Mocha Toscanini’s ice cream (some of the very best in Boston). An excellent treat. By the end of the evening I’d made it up to 17,000 steps, and now I’m sitting on my couch with my feet up.

Did you make it outside today?

The Most Important Decision

Most of the time around here our food is home cooked, organic, locally sourced. I pride myself on cooking a glut of vegetables on a daily basis. I try to bring my lunch into work. I rarely bake at home, and junk doesn’t make it into the house. I do have one weakness…. okay, yeah, no, let’s scrap this entire intro here. Seriously, just ignore any attempts to set the idyllic scene. I don’t need to apologize, nor do I feel guilty for this important truth:

I love Ben & Jerry’s. Love it. I’d eat pints and pints all day long if I could. In fact, I really miss the days where I could pack back an entire pint with ease. Now, unfortunately, I care about not getting sugar high and a stomach ache. Oh, good old days of gluttony, I do miss you! But why Ben & Jerry’s? It’s the creaminess. And the flavors. And the puns. And mostly the delightful mix-in prizes you get with every scoop. It’s the romance of scooping bowls for yourself and your partner, and making the conscious decision to equally share the crags of chocolate toffee, or the cookie dough, or the brown sugar swirls. A few years ago when Molly’s book ‘Season to Taste‘ came out, one of the most fascinating parts was her mentioning that Ben Cohen had anosmia (a loss of smell, and corresponding loss of taste), and that was the impetus for all of those excellent textural additions. It makes total sense.

I’ve tried a lot of ice cream in my day, but for me Ben & Jerry’s ice cream is the total package for a supermarket brand. While it may not be BiRite Salted Caramel, it’s much more than the sum of it’s parts. The caveat: it’s not small batch, and the ingredients aren’t always as wholesome as I’d like, and technically they are owned by a major blood-sucking corporation – the man. But man oh man, do they have consistency down. I’ve never met a flavor that I didn’t like.

So here we are tonight.

The ice cream aisle. All of the options. It’s the most important decision of the day. I love asserting this to strangers in the ice cream aisle. They all nod, knowingly. I’m only being partially facetious. Tonight, Pistachio Pistachio sang the loudest siren song. Sometimes we can’t make a single choice in agreement, so we get two pints. “We’re going for a balanced meal here!” I joke to the cashier. It’s one of my “regular jokes,” the kind that when I have children they’ll roll their eyes at.

Tonight this pint is coming home, and I’m going to watch Top Chef episodes that I’ve fallen behind on, and the world will be good.

Also: while doing “research” tonight, I came across this masterpiece – 2dips.  2 Dippers Kris and Fred would sit down with a pint and write their own reviews – the Siskel and Ebert of food blogging, with fierce enthusiasm about their frozen adventures. 500 words about a pint of ice cream? Yes, indeed. After reading through dozens of reviews, I was horrified to find that they stopped updating in 2011. How could this happen? So, 2dips Kris, 2dips Fred: this scoop is for you, wherever you are.

Other flavors of Ben & Jerry’s I enjoy:

  • Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
  • Chunky Monkey
  • Cinnamon Buns
  • Coffee Caramel Buzz/ Coffee Coffee Buzz Buzz Buzz/Coffee Heath Bar Crunch
  • Chocolate Therapy
  • New York Super Fudge Chunk
  • Mint Chocolate Cookie
  • Greek: Strawberry Shortcake

And from the scoop shops: Coconut Seven Layer Bar and White Russian. I wish this was sold by the pint!

Do you have a favorite flavor? 

Annabelle’s Ice Cream

I had very few reservations about moving back across the country to New England. There is so much here I love passionately, and so much I missed when I was away. My family is here, I have dear friends that I’ve known my entire life. I love walking on the beach that I grew up on, a five minute walk from my childhood home that my parents still live in. I love driving into Boston just to amble through the Common on a sunny day. I love a spontaneous trip to New York to load my car full of smoked fish and bread and coffee from Zabars.

One reservation I had was bringing my partner Devon back to New England with me and the chance of him hating it. He was born in Southern California, and has lived all his life in the Golden State. I worried about the lack of air conditioning, the blizzard season, the drivers in Massachusetts, and the fact that our home basketball team is not to his liking. (Although that won’t really matter given that we don’t appear to have a season shaping up…Grumble.) But, despite all this, he, being a wonderful stand up fellow (or maybe just a little crazy), came with me. And I couldn’t be more ecstatic.

It’s not going to be the easiest transition, but he seems to be doing well so far. And we’ll make sure that we make a trip to L.L. Bean shortly to acquire proper gear for our arctic adventures.

In the past month, Devon has been learning a lot of intriguing (not quite true) facts about New England. Did you know that New Hampshire has the highest per capita rate of vanity plates? Well, everyone has been telling us this, and yet we are actually #2 after Virginia. What is also not true, is that we consume the largest amount of ice cream per capita. That award goes to the hardy citizens of Alaska. (No fewer than 4 people have claimed that fact to him as well.)

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This affectionate rumor is not actually surprising when you consider the amount of people in line at any given time of the day at any of the dozen or so home made ice cream shops in my home town. One of my greatest pleasures these past few weeks has been to introduce Devon to some of these local havens, so that he has an objective view of his options.

The best of these, in my opinion, is Annabelle’s. Annabelle’s has been open since 1982, and I’ve been going there pretty much since I was born. (My grandmother first fed me ice cream when I was five and a half months old. Before you scream out about negligence, she was eating a bowl of chocolate ice cream, I tasted it, determined that it was mine, and face-planted.)

The vibe in Annabelle’s is a certain rustic, hippy charm, and you feel like there might be a milking cow out back. You can come in and sit for a while, but most people don’t . You can order from a takeout window, and right outside are benches where you can overlook the water and the tugboats, and everything screams old-town charm.

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The ice cream itself is superb. Rich, thick, and high in butterfat. They have a good selection of classic flavors, and some non-traditional ones as well. They make a small fuss out of the fact that they don’t have mint chocolate chip ice cream – instead they have two mint-loving options: Mint Summer’s Night Dream (Mint Chocolate Ice Cream with Chocolate Chunks), and Minty Mint Cookie (Vanilla based Ice Cream with Mint flavoring and Mint Cookies).

I’m a sucker for classic New England flavors: Maple Walnut, Pumpkin Pie, Grape-Nut. Yes, there is an ice cream flavor that is Grape-Nut, like the cereal. My absolute favorite is the Raspberry Chocolate Chip. Real raspberry ice cream, with generous chocolate-y shards. I eat it pretty much every other time I go.

On the past two trips, Devon has had the White Pistachio – pure pistachio ice cream with whole pistachios, and he has sworn allegiance. I think this coast may be growing on him.

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Annabelle’s Ice Cream
49 Ceres Street
Portsmouth, NH 03801
(603) 436-3400

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