I is for ICE CREAM

We were constructing bar graphs in school today and my student teacher used as her basis for the data, favourite ice cream flavours. There were the usual ones that you would expect such as strawberry, raspberry ripple, vanilla, chocolate and honeycomb but I didn't see mine on the list so I asked the class to guess it. Eventually after we had explored almost every flavour they could think of and after i had given them a massive clue that by telling them its colour, with the help of their teacher, they managed to come up with pistachio, a light green and fragrant delight that tastes of almond. The pistachio nut, like all nuts is has been the subject of scientific scrutiny and there are suggestions based on recent studies that it may reduce the risk of heart disease, levels of 'bad cholesterol', calm acute stress reaction and improve cardiovascular health. There are just one of two problems. First, I don't think the scientists in question had it in mind that the pistachio flavoured ice cream, with all its sugar and fat content was likely to create the same health benefits. Secondly, my own research, which has generally amounted to walking into ice cream parlours, suggests that pistachio ice cream is not easy to find in our province. In fact at the moment, I don't know anywhere that I can get it at all and a quick browse of the internet shows that the people who crave this delicacy on mainland UK are suffering just as much as we are here. In truth, there is a pistachio ice cream famine right across Britain. Even as I write this, my mouth is drooling with saliva for the taste that I last experienced on New Year's Day 2007 just beside the Trevi Fountain in Rome. I suppose if I had been more proactive, I should have brought back barrels of the stuff, though this is hardly a practical solution when travelling with an airline that only allows you 20kg of luggage, never mind asking them to stick it in the freezer on the flight home. Unfortunately wife does not share my passion for this exotic flavoured ice cream, being more susceptible to the cooling and quenching effects of lemon or peach flavoured dessert, so the cries of famine are tending to fall on deaf ears and my idea of an 'pistachio ice cream kitchen' modelled on the old 'soup kitchens' of the potato famine era, are not attracting much attention. No, I think she is working on the principle that 'God helps those who help themselves.' But when it comes to pistachio, I just can't help myself!

Ice Cream was one of the reasons I always looked forward to my uncle and aunt visiting us on a Sunday night at home. On their way, they nearly always stopped at Cafolla's ice cream shop in Armagh and would get a huge tub of raspberry ripple flavour that mum would have to dish out immediately and serve with some fruit cocktail as soon as they arrived. Occasionally, it would be sliders, you know that slice of ice cream between two wafers that the Australians more aptly call 'cream betweens' and while that's a cherished memory of my past, maybe it's more a reflection of the kindness of my uncle and aunt who had no family of their own but who lavished goodness on their nieces and nephews and whose personalities were equally endearing. He had a wonderful sense of humour and also a rare ability to make any story he told larger than life so that you waited for every word and she just laughed at him all the time and together they brought joy into our home many times.

And ice cream reminds me of an elderly couple who have often visited our school on their evangelistic tours from USA and who invariably sing a song that has the wonderfully bizarre first line of 'I love Jesus better than ice cream and ice cream's very good!' And guess what? Today I 'googled' the first line to try and get some more info about the song and its author and I come across a bebo site dedicated to that very song and based on the fact that while ice cream will melt and go sour, Jesus will never leave us or forsake us. And of course the last line of the verse is 'Jesus loves me better than ice cream and ice cream's very good' so despite the odd title I think the writer has a definite point to the whole song.

As I sit here thinking about pistachio ice cream, Cafolla's raspberry ripple, Bacci's ice cream parlour that used to be in Portadown, the delicious home made varieties from Newry and Rathfriland, Knickerbocker Glories and a wonderful apple pie flavour that had real bits of the pie hidden beneath the ice cream, I can't help also thinking that all these flavours are still within my reach. Maybe it's just that I'm not searching hard enough for them. And all the good things that God wants to give me are also within my grasp but either I'm not searching diligently in His Word or I simply haven't asked Him for them, thinking that He has them for someone else. But didn't Jesus say, 'Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.' What's keeping me back? Not God's will anyway. So it must be my own. For God can bring more flavour to my life than any ice cream. I want to taste and see today.