Proustian moments #2, from Mona

This memory comes from one of my top food-nerd friends (and one of my favorite people on this green earth), Mona.  She is also on assignment as my new Asia correspondent.  You can read about her food adventures in China thus far (and I highly recommend you do) here.  And without further ado, I present Mona's ice cream memory:

I'll never ever ever forget the first time I had strawberry ice cream. It was (simply put) a glorious moment in life.

Now, I'm talking here about REAL strawberry ice cream with REAL strawberries chopped up and mixed in. Not that oddly bright pink junk you see in the supermarket freezer section.

So there I was at the awkward age of fourteen, hanging out on the beach in Del Mar, spending a lazy afternoon on a big blue towel, thinking about the usual things most silly young teenage girls might obsess/ponder over in this same situation. You know: cute boys, sand stuck in between my toes, cute boys, whether I should put on more sunscreen, etc. I think the combination of salty air and summer heat must have made me especially thirsty because what I remember is eagerly running to the parking lot to buy a bottle of water from the little snack cart. (Of course at that point I didn't suspect that I was about to taste something sublime.)

What Mona was thinking about before she learned about strawberry ice cream

The black pavement was burning the soles of my sandy feet and I realized water wasn't gonna do it for me. There was a lady selling homemade ice cream at the snack shop and so I scoped out her offerings. I don't even remember why, but I picked the strawberry, knowing well that my favorites were cookies n' cream and peanutbutter-chocolate. I remember my first taste, and my regret that I was already fourteen and had never discovered this yummy combination of sweet, icy, milky strawberry goodness before. Perhaps needless to say, since then my all time favorite flavor is (real) strawberry ice cream, no matter the season. This is coming from a serious chocoholic.

Now look at her!