ICE CREAM FOR EVERYONE*

Orleans, Massachusetts may not be the "Ice Cream Capital of the World" but it should be. Of course, everyone claims that title. But during the summer we have more than six outright proprietors, two beach joints and seafood eateries which sell ice cream in their restaurants.

After all, Steve Herrell's Ice Cream began in Somerville, MA and Howard Johnson's in Quincy, MA. Each boasted a variety of flavors with one crucial difference: cost. As an undergraduate in Northampton, MA I often went to an equally good ice cream shop (now closed) nearer where I lived and less expensive than the Steve's branch. Later, I learned my friend, a Cape Codder, worshiped Ben & Jerry's for years, but when they sold their franchise, she elected to go to a favorite spot in Orleans, Ice Cream Cafe**.

With its pink and blue sign unobtrusively sitting outside the white clapboard house, you'd be hard-pressed to find the spot. Since, however, a rotary was built last year near Ice Cream Cafe, located on 5 South Orleans Road or Route 28, (the shop sits on Route 28 but the entrance, look for the awning with the same logo as the street sign, is on Cottage Street) the oasis is easier to locate and has more business than ever.

How does Ice Cream Cafe compete with so many other places, especially one shop on the way to Nauset Beach? Well, first and foremost, the owners don't nickle and dime. When you order a sundae, you get a genuine sundae and have a choice of multiple sizes. No extra costs--believe it or not--for nuts and generous amounts of homemade whip cream and hot fudge. Their equally scrumptious, homemade ice cream selections cover every allergy and/or taste preference: from gluten free (even g.f. sugar and wafer cones) to vegan, non-dairy or low-fat. Varieties include something for everyone: the gourmet (Chai), the adventurous (Chocolate Chili Pepper) to the earthy (Salty Caramel).

Gluten free sugar cone with dairy free chocolate ice cream
& chocolate sprinkles
(Yelp/- Ice Cream Cafe -/Google Images)

More so the customer service is second to none. And, I've tried every ice cream shop across the Cape--nothing compares. It helps that the owners enlist family. Yet, they also hire college students and train them to treat each customer with respect and a smile. Many shops don't take the time to manage or motivate their employees and judging by the tip jar, Ice Cream Cafe's workers rake in the bucks.

On a weeknight during the summer you'll see lines coming out the door as you would at most other places during weekends. If the reasons above aren't enough to explain my preference, then consider this: those other places squeeze every penny from locals and tourists alike while Ice Cream Cafe's prices are competitive but their portions generous. Their "Kiddie" size (one scoop) is a bargain.

Rare these days to find a place where you can order a cone served with a smile and watch song birds enter birdhouses hanging from abutting trees as you sit at your outdoor table feasting on a cool dessert, happy that you've picked the best summer ice cream shop in town and on Cape Cod.


*A special thank you to those who participated in my poll for topics this week.

**For the curious or the pedantics, the owners have elected not to use the accent aigu over the "e" in "Cafe."

A GENUINE CAPE COD BLOG: SAILING PLEASANT BAY

O Shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man!*

"The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Pleasant Bay
Christopher Seufert Photography (Google Images)

"Cape Cod Writer" serves as a moniker for my blog. I rarely write about the Cape, however, to save morsels for my books. This week, I couldn't resist blogging about a favorite sport which I've never fully pursued: sailing. First Mate to my Captain, a.k.a. boyfriend, I still steer without effort, but work the mainsail sheets minimally. Trepidation, maybe, chronic challenges more so; working the lines of a Flying Scot (see photo below) serves me much better than tedious prescribed physical therapy.

How did this all come about? My boyfriend joined Pleasant Bay Community Boating , a non-profit organization which, through generous subsidies, offers young would-be sailors lessons and locals a chance to sail at significantly reduced rates. Membership includes all the benefits without the hassle of maintaining, mooring and rigging the boats.

We had previously chosen the Flying Scot for space, as the two of us being tall barely fit into a sunfish. Nevertheless, my spontaneous guy recently suggested we try the sunfish this day as the winds were gusting to 10 knots plus. He felt the need for speed. So, off we went to the boathouse where outside a young man attached the rigging, the captain assisted, and shoved us off into the the seemingly workable waters of Pleasant Bay.

Flying Scot Sailboat
(Google Images)

Sunfish
(Google Images)

Well, as I predicted--I should've been a meteorologist--the winds increased the farther out and closer to the sea we sailed. In an instant, we were flying faster than any Scot (the sailboat that is). My man's sparkling eyes, behind his aviators, and beaming smile became instantly infectious. Then the fun really began when he asked me to fix the tiller that hadn't been fully dropped into the water. With my captain hanging on to my ankles, I extended my long arms and managed to push the tiller blade down: problem was I had to get back which required pushing from my end and pulling from his.

That battle won, we continued: the sea spray catching us and white caps lifting and rocking us until I had to shimmy my way into the cockpit. Ducking and leaning whenever my fellow sailor had to come about, we were having a blast.

Boyfriend had joked before we had set sail: "Wouldn't it be fun to capsize on this hot, muggy day?" I had halfheartedly agreed, unaware that the sunfish we had been given required brute strength to right the craft. Later into our journey, my boyfriend reiterated that he had been teasing about tipping the boat: an admission that Poseidon must have noted for the wind picked up just as we came about, with both of us leaning aport. The boat flipped slowly as if suddenly thrust into zero-gravity, giving time for me to see my boyfriend fall forward to starboard and tumble into the water and to observe my jackknifed exodus to port into the Bay. I recovered quickly--we both wore life jackets--and like a bobbing apple I waited for a signal from my boyfriend that he had survived unscathed. Then, I used my breaststroke arms to part the waters and reach the other side to join him.

It took both of us to right the sunfish--by then my body had had enough, though I wouldn't admit it to my boyfriend. Knowingly, he gave me one discreet and then a second indiscreet boost into the cockpit. He then followed as he climbed aboard without assistance. We laughed at the accidental misadventure. Neither one of us acknowledging the what if scenarios...or possible news highlights as a great white had been spotted in Pleasant Bay earlier this year.

No, seafarers that we are nothing would constrain our good time. Zigzagging our way across the Bay, I laughed as our sunfish caught the wind and we passed a tern lumbering along in no hurry to catch us. Other boats, including Flying Scots, catboats, fishing and motor boats darted across from south to north as we stayed our course from west to east and returning east to west. No one got near us, though my shrieks of pleasure may have kept curious onlookers at bay.

Yes, by the time we mariners ensconced on our craft washed ashore, my body rebelled, so I transitioned from First Mate to landlubber and slowly made my way up the hill to grab a towel and sit in the sun as my captain disassembled the rigging. Outside the clubhouse, I welcomed the warmth for the fickle Cape weather had changed to cooling breezes and overcast skies. Our timing had been perfect. Nowhere in the world could I be happier.

Black-browed Albatross
(Google Images)

*I chose this quote not only for its nautical reference, but also because of my last name, Shreve. I'm not ancient--okay, a ten-year old might disagree--yet wiser. Regarding the religious connotation, decades ago I was damned by fire-breathing zealots for attending the opening of the movie The Last Temptation of Christ in New York City. So, you could call the immersion described above as an unintentional baptism. Have never felt cleaner. 

A LIGHT RESPITE: FLYING BUTTRESSES

Remember those awkward years? You're probably recalling middle school or high school. Mine were in college--a late bloomer, really late. Besides the social angst, my indecisiveness led to academic highs and lows. I loved Art History but chose to switch majors for many reasons: one outstanding, I detested architecture.

Flying buttresses, York Cathedral
(Google Images)

Now before you get your "flying buttress" out of joint, I lean toward the visual. More so, I haven't forgotten Art 100 and the lectures comprising glorious architectural examples.

What spoiled my enjoyment of the field? Lectures. Not the professors, many of whom were my favorite in college, but the vernacular, the tedious details, the multitude of floor plans and the underlying engineering. I couldn't ingest and process the analytical details, the foundation for understanding how the great monuments to the ages were built. 

The Houses of Parliament by Claude Monet
(Google Images)

The beginning of my recess from architecture remains vague, opaque like the morning fog bank enveloping one of Monet's paintings of, "The Houses of Parliament." I've walked through those testaments to the past and the present (House of Lords/ House of Commons). And I continue to see each House in my mind but have never been able to readily identify the date, period or style without consulting a reference website (orig. Middle Ages, 1840-70 rebuilt, Gothic Revival; thanks, Wikipedia). 

Actually, I believe the downward spiral began much earlier with the Romanesque. Columns, I can picture those unadorned columns inside French churches, for example Saint-Etienne Nevers below:

(Google images)

And I do know the difference between a façade, nave and an apse. However, the emphasis on comparing the schematics, e.g. mouldings, "Thud!" My own façade still droops and my foundation sinks whenever I see or hear an in-depth analysis.

West Façade, Chartres
(Google Images)

Royal Portal
(Google Images)

Yet, when I faced Chartres Cathedral almost forty years ago, looking up at the small statues adorning the West entrance, I became frozen in time, transported back to medieval France and the masons who built the great cathedral stone-by-stone.

(See below: for architects, art historians, or pedants who want specifics: the central tympanum of the Royal Portal with jamb statues.)

Due to time constraints or bias I can't say, Eastern and non-Christian houses of worship were skimmed that year for Art 100, but during my later travels, when entering a Hindu temple in Bali or a Buddhist temple in Seoul, I had a similar, powerful reaction. Intense peace.

Gunung Kawi, Bali
(Google Images)

Other architectural examples I admire range from antiquity through modern day, with some pit-stops along the ages but I can't dismiss the importance of the Bauhaus movement or the controversy of I.M. Pei's pyramid at the Louvre. No, with time, I've learned more patience and acquired more depth. And in my mind, I can now juxtapose then compare Boston's Cathedral of the Cross with St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York with greater understanding, or comprehend, savor the book Brunelleschi's Dome by Ross King, having seen the engineering wonder atop the Cathedral of Florence.   

Inside the Louvre - inverted Pyramid

(Google Images)

Thus, as I've grown older I've begun to associate more of what I learned about architecture with what I have seen personally (as well as on the small or large screen). With visual reinforcement, I've discerned the differences more readily, the influences more acutely. And my appreciation for exquisite details of our world's treasures has replaced my loathing of the field, architecture.