This is the dawning of ice cream season...

You know it is summer when you start to think about ice cream. As a child I knew it was really summer when my mother would pull out the old crank ice cream freezer and start to cut up some fresh peaches. I loved how the peach pieces became semi-frozen as the ice cream cranked into perfection. As the freezer crank got harder and harder to turn, our mother would have one of us kids sit on the top of the freezer to hold it down. Made for a very cold tush and lots of good laughing. I don’t remember our family making any other type of ice cream in the crank freezer other than peach. But that was just fine with us. It was a delicious, icy cold and not too terribly sweet frozen treat and you didn’t even mind the headache you got from eating it too quickly.

We were not a premium ice cream sort of family. Choc-Van-Straw was the flavor that most often resided in our childhood refrigerator and it was never ice CREAM but always ice MILK. Breyer’s never made an appearance in our household until all three of us kids had gone off to college and grown up. It was one of those clues that your parents were starting to live a different life when you came home and found Breyer’s in the freezer, real butter instead of I Can’t Believe Its Not in the refrigerator and actual Oreos in the cupboard. It must have been a challenge for our parents to afford to send three children to college; both our parents worked and worked hard and choices had to be made. They were very devoted to making sure their children got the education they could only dream about. I wish I had told them more often how grateful I was for all they did and sacrificed for us.

We would often go down to Wendell on Sunday afternoons to visit my grandparents and take a leisurely car ride with a stop for ice cream. I always went for the chocolate revel, my mom picked butter pecan and my grandmother always went for the lemon. My brother in those days was strictly a chocolate fan, but those days were a decade or more from when mint chocolate chip or cookies and cream became options. Life was simpler then.

I rarely bought my lunch at school. I was a picky eater and I didn’t even like the way the cafeteria smelled much less wanted to eat what was served. I was a brown bagger with years of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to my credit. I did sometimes buy ice cream. I loved those little paper cups of ice cream that came with the tiny flat wooden spoon. Vanilla or chocolate—those were your choices. Nothing fancy.

We usually spent a week at Carolina Beach in the summer and we quickly learned to listen for the jingly bells of the ice cream truck. We would grab our coins and run barefoot over the hot pavement to make sure the truck would see us and make a stop. I liked the orange sherbet push-ups and yes, they very much resembled ice cream having been stuffed into a toilet paper tube. I didn’t care.

I remember once my mother bought really fancy ice cream from Pine State Creamery in Raleigh. Each ice cream creation was molded into the shape of a flower bouquet and she served them to her bridge club. I thought they were the most beautiful things I had ever seen.

It makes me sad that Pine State is no longer the choice dairy in Raleigh though I think other ice cream shops have made their mark in the Capital City. I remember my mother loved the Peanut Butter and Chocolate Ice Cream at Baskin-Robbins and would never turn down the opportunity to go there. Our sweet niece always loved celebrating her birthday with a Baskin-Robbins ice cream cake which my sister would special order. What could be more special or delicious!?!

Ice cream seems to be a connecting theme whenever we travel. We adore the Love Creamery in Duluth, Minnesota. If you have never had their honey comb ice cream it is well worth the journey. Or if you are lucky enough to be in Duluth on your birthday you might be treated to one of Love Creamery’s ice cream cakes. So delicious!!!

There is a restaurant in Ohio where we stop when we drive to Minnesota that has the world’s best caesar salad and excellent pizza plus it is right next to a Graeter’s Ice Cream Shop. You can now buy Graeter’s here in Asheville (try Fresh Market), but it is a treat to get it freshly scooped into a sugar cone or cup after a nice meal.

Massachusetts has its share of great ice cream too—we love Acushnet Creamery and the Ice Cream Cottage in Fairhaven is gaining in popularity, too.

Our Massachusetts grandchildren love coming to North Carolina to visit because we have something they can’t get at home—Dairy Queen! Who doesn’t love a late night Blizzard!?

When I was a student at Virginia Theological Seminary our favorite spot to go was the Dreamery in the Del Ray neighborhood where the owner Liz made amazing homemade custard. Even the Obamas came there (well, at least once). Okay, frozen custard is different than ice cream but oh so delicious. She also made a dynamite ginger cookie and homemade marshmallows. Later she had to change the name of her place when Edy’s Ice Cream sued because they were branding the name Dreamery (which they later discontinued). But regardless of the name change—it’s now the Dairy Godmother—the frozen custard remains just as delicious.

Let’s not forget the Vermont specialty of creemees. Another soft serve variety that wonderfully celebrates Vermont dairies. Here’s to the cows! Our favorite treat on a Sunday afternoon after church was to drive down to Vermont Cookie Love and enjoy a creemee.

Vermont is also the home of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream and a visit to their factory and store is definitely worth a trip. Don’t miss the Flavor Graveyard to discover the flavors that just didn’t make the cut.

I was always able to find the local ice cream shop when I was studying in Wales. Wonderful, wonderful ice cream! So many delicious memories!!

There is lots of good ice cream in Asheville where we now live—The Hop with its quirky flavors, the Freeze which has been here forever, and our favorite Sunshine Sammies which scoops homemade ice cream between homemade cookies (yes, they are way too big but…) and more.

So thank you, dear cows, for sharing your milk and your cream and your wonderful goodness with us! Summer is upon us and it is time to go out looking for the best of the best and you know what they say—

You scream, I scream, we all scream for ice cream…

Let the summer screaming commence!!

Please share your favorite ice cream spots, childhood ice cream memories and/or your favorite flavors! Post in the comments so all can enjoy!