Vanilla or chocolate or strawberry or ... ?

Ice Cream, the sign

Ice Cream, the real thing

The theme this week over at Moody Monday is ice cream. A bit perplexing. I see ice cream more as a mood-inducer (craving) or mood-creator (pleasure, brain freeze) than a mood itself. But, it makes no nevermind to me. Ice cream is the topic, so ice cream I will do.

But how to present my submission? There is the typical photograph, the expected one, then there is the unexpected. Too much thought for a Tuesday morning. It's my blog, I'll do what I want! So I have gone both ways.

The first shot is outside of a junk store in east-end Toronto. I took it on this day, but at a very different style of store than the antique store where I spied the jester. It's actually the sidewalk outside of this store. I have a thing for signs and photograph them all the time. If you've seen my Flickr account, you've been witness to this sign addiction thing I have going on.

The second shot, the more typical one, is some homemade strawberry ice cream I made a couple of years ago using farm-fresh strawberries. The kind that are red through and through, with no white centres. The kind with that heady strawberry smell that makes you want to eat the whole box. I took one bite of this homemade pink-and-red elixir and exclaimed, "I didn't know strawberry ice cream could taste this good!" It was heaven in a bowl.

I like ice cream, really I do, but I am fickle about it. It's such a simple treat yet complicated in its own way. Too cold, it's tasteless -- worse, it makes your gums ache and gives you that brain-freeze headache. Too warm, it tastes so much better -- but the runny, drippy consistency is a turnoff. Too many big, hard chunks of anything -- say nuts, or cookie pieces -- and I'm afraid I'm going to chip a tooth. Despite all that, we always have ice cream in the freezer, usually two different kinds. I am partial to anything mocha or coffee, and anything with cherries in it is a good thing. And chocolate-mint is wonderful.

What about you? Do you keep ice cream in your freezer? When we were in Florida in February, we tried Key Lime Pie ice cream, sold at Publix. My gosh, that was wonderful! I was so thankful we had freezer space. When we're back at the condo this fall, I want to try the Red Velvet Cake ice cream I also saw at Publix. I bet it's yummy.