Yesterday, Benjamin, a friend came to visit. The day was a magnificent-unbutton-your coat type-of winter-day. After lunch we went out for an ice-cream.
The flavors included:
Cassis – Black Current
Menthe – Mint
Framboise – Raspberry
Noix de Coco – Coconut
Noisette – Hazelnut
Chocolat Blanc – White Chocolate
Do any of those sound good to you? They even had pamplemousse which is grapefruit in French. My friend asked for Café – Coffee.
I am not an ice cream fan. Though I love tasting samples. I know it isn't the thing to do: ask for a sample if one isn't going to have an ice cream. I managed to restrain myself and not ask for a sample. In honesty, I think my extra five Christmas pounds had something to do with it.
Then I noticed the menu: "AMERICAIN". Gulp! How did they know me and my derrière? Maybe I should have buttoned my coat.
Maybe the real reason I didn't ask for a sample was because they would have detected my accent, and know I was an Americain. One way or another it was a good dieting tool.
Yesterday, Benjamin came to visit. He was the first child I ever knew in Paris, his mother, Bonnie, was my first expat friend. They moved back to the USA four years later. The last time I saw him he was five years old.
In his eyes I could still see him as a little boy. I could see his mother and his father. Memories of our times together came rushing to the surface joyfully colliding with one another:
I am in Paris, we are sitting around their kitchen table Benjamin is six months old, then another memory springs forth we are playing Pictionary half the group is French, the other half is American, another memory Bonnie (Benjamin's mother) and I are both pregnant: Bonnie with her second child, and I am pregnant with Chelsea, another memory Bonnie and I are riding the Round-Up…. my memories came in no order, flashing before me when I looked into his eyes. The moment I saw him I wanted to hear every missed detail of his life for the last eighteen passed years and at the same time run back to 1989 and hug them both tightly and never let go.
Benjamin ordered coffee ice cream. He said, "My mom doesn't like coffee." With that another memory comes to surface… Bonnie and I are having Earl Grey tea with chocolate eclairs. We had chocolate eclairs nearly every time we saw each other. I asked her why her Earl Grey tea always tastes better than mine? Recalling the memory makes me tell Benjamin the story of how I learned why my Earl Grey Tea tasted awful compared to his mother's. But that dear reader is a story for another day.
What is your favorite ice cream?
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