August 10, 2005
I just want coconut ice cream melting down my arm.
While strolling through St. Georges Street in St. Augustine my wife and I were hypnotized by this incredibly delicious aroma wafting through the air on a certain street corner. I'm not sure if I can adequately describe the scent, but it was something of a mixture of chocolate and fudge and sugar wafers and all that is sweet and scrumptuous.
There was a line of people waiting to enter this little shop in the corner, and folks coming out of the store with smiles from ear to ear. Little kids walking around nursing their fudge covered apples. Teenagers rolling their eyes to the delicious decadence of their chunks of fudge. Old and young alike licking away at their double scoops on sugar cones. The August heat and little kids with ice cream melting down their arms.
The August heat and little kids with ice cream melting down their arms.
The minute I saw the first little kid with a huge ball of ice cream sitting atop a cone in his hand and the ice cream succumbing to the heat and dripping and oozing ever so slowly down his little hand and arm I got this incredible craving for coconut ice cream. On a sugar cone. During the first week in August. While away from home.
So, if I may, let me tell you a little coconut ice cream story....
From the time I was 8 the first week in August meant summer vacation at the beach with the whole family. Every year family would fly down from all over and we would all stay one or two weeks at the Hilyard Manor Motel and Apartments. Needless to say, around this time of year I always start to reminisce about the time when all I had to worry about was whether my feet were sandy and I wasnt dripping wet before coming in for lunch at Abuela's motel room and then waiting an hour or so after eating before going back to the pool or the beach. And I think about and I remember and I crave coconut ice cream. On a sugar cone. During the first week in August. While away from home.
And I think about and remember my grandmother.
The first week in August takes me back to the days where dad and I would load my grandmother's Cuban rocking chair onto dad's truck and drive it down to Surfside in Miami Beach. We would unload it along with the rest of my grandparent's things, help with the check in and finally set the rocker in its proper place by the window in my grandparents first floor rental.
Abuela had thrombophlebitis in her right leg and knee and was unable to bend her leg and walk properly. She was a bit overweight which also compounded to her condition. There were very few chairs she could sit properly on, one being her rocker and the other, during the first weeks in August, were the captain's chairs that served as table chairs in some rooms at the Hilyard Motel. So it was our job to get her rocker to the beach and then scour the motel in search of a captain's chair that we'd place just outside her door so that she could sit and enjoy la playa.
Once we had set up the rocker and chair and helped put away my grandparents stuff, it was off to what my grandmother called "Calle Ocho", the two block strip on Harding avenue full of shops and boutiques and tourist tshirt and shell places and our primary destination, the Pantry Pride supermarket. We would stock up on our provisions for the week, me being in charge of abuela's special list that she'd hand me along with a couple of tightly folded dollars as we headed out the door.
Abuela's list was never long and was always simple. Helado de coco, a six pack of Matervas (her own stash), a pack of lady fingers, a box of sugar cones, maybe a specific kind of butter, a box of Kleenex. She always gave me a few dollars more for some chocolate or gum or a watergun.
We'd bring back all the groceries and put them away in the kitchenette. Abuela's secret stash would always be hidden in a spot where only her and I and el Primo, my grandfather, supposedly knew about. Of course, everyone knew exactly where her stash was, but no one ever raided it but me.
The one thing that was always on her list and that they never had at the supermarket was coconut ice cream. In all the years we stayed at the Hilyard not once was I ever able to buy coconut ice cream for my grandmother at the supermarket. Yet every year, in her beautiful handwriting, coconut ice cream was at the top of her little supermarket list.
Fortunately for her, just across Collins Avenue and around the corner at Harding and 96th was Mozart's Cafe, an old style ice cream parlor. It was a small place, decorated like any old time ice cream parlor with deep wood counters and marble tops and polished brass everywhere. There were old sepia toned photographs all over the walls. The ice cream menu written in old fashioned lettering. I can still hear the little bell hung above the door that rang evertime you came in.
Mozarts had every flavor ice cream imaginable. From the standard vanilla chocolate strawberries to the rocky road pistachios chocolate chips to the tropical mameys guanabanas and yes, coconut.
The first couple of years, after all of the first day at the beach chores were done, Abuela sent el Primo and I off on our trek for coconut ice cream. My grandfather and I would stroll over to Mozart's, I would order a cup of mamey for him and a cone of coconut for me in English and we'd sit at the only table in the shop. In those few minutes there with my grandfather, both of us calmy and patiently enjoying our frozen treats, we'd plan the next morning's activities: Breakfast then feeding the pidgeons; A quick stroll down to the Americana looking for shells and then a long swim in the Atlantic.
And just when I was getting down to the last bite, the bottom of the cone, El Primo would slip me some money and say "por poco se nos olvida la Prima." Saying, basically, dont forget the half gallon of your grandmother's coconut ice cream. We hurried back to the hotel not so much because the ice cream would melt, but because by then my grandmother was waiting cone in hand for her coconut ice cream.
Then one year Mozart's stopped selling coconut ice cream by half gallons and my grandfather and I were forced to return to the motel with a double scoop cup. This wouldnt do, of course, for my grandmother. She had very few luxuries in her life and coconut ice cream on a sugar cone was one of them. So the next day, she came up with a plan that set the precedent for every other beach year thereafter.
I'd been swimming all morning in the ocean and had been called in for lunch. Now, being Cuban, this only means one thing: It'll be hours before you can get back in the water. If you eat, you have to wait for la digestion. There's just no way around that wait one hour after eating thing.
As I sat there waiting for la digestion with my grandfather, in the cool shade just outside their motel room, Abuela worked her way outside and sat down next to me on her captain's chair. She looked over at me with this grin, a grin Id never been fortunate enough to receive. One of those grins that were reserved for adults only. One of those grins that conveys some kind of understanding the kids arent privy to.
"Me comiera un helado de coco," she said. She could sure use a coconut ice cream. "Y tu?"
"Si, Abuela," I replied. "Me too."
"Id give you money to buy me a coconut ice cream cone," she said. "But it's too hot. You'd never make it back without it melting."
Without it melting? I thought. Of ourse I could make it back without it melting! Im eleven years old! Much faster than last year! Of course I could make it back! Besides, it's not really that hot.
"I think I can do it, Abuela," I told her.
"No creo," she said. "Besides, you're way too young to go there by yourself. And it's so hot that it would melt half way back here."
"I can do it, Abuela," I said. "I'm much faster than last year. And you yourself said Ive grown this past year."
"Se derrite el helado, mijo." It'll melt.
"Abuela, it wont melt. Im sure of it."
"You really think you can make it back without the ice cream melting? I don't think you can."
"I bet I can," I replied. I was sure I could make it.
"I'm sure you cant make it back," she said. "But I'll take you up on that bet." She reached into the pocket of her bata de casa and pulled our her little lime green change purse. She opened it, took out a couple of folded up dollars and handed them to me. "If you make it back before the ice cream melts, then you win and you get a free ice cream cone."
"And if I dont?" I was almost afraid to ask.
"I thought you said you were sure you could make it?" There came that grin again. "OK. If the ice cream melts before you get here...then...you cant go swimming until your parents get here this afternoon."
Now the stakes had increased. My parents werent getting to the hotel until late afternoon as they were working, and not being able to swim in the afternoon was a major bummer. But I wanted coconut ice cream. Moreover, I wanted to prove to Abuela that I was, in fact, old enough to get ice cream by myself and that I was, in fact, fast enough to make it back to the motel without the ice cream melting.
So I took the money and sped off to Mozart's. I ran all the way and when I got there I could barely speak. I had to ask for the ice cream in between heavy breaths. Two...single...scoop...coconut ice...creams...on...sugar cones. They served my cones, set them down on the cone holding thingie. I paid, picked the cones up and darted out the door.
I made it from the ice cream parlor to the corner of Harding and 96th without a hitch. I turned the corner and ran along the storefront of the shoe store and onto the parking lot that was at the northwest of corner of Collins and 96th. Both ice creams had begun to melt but I was undaunted. I kept licking at mine as I ran through the parking lot, trying to keep the ice cream from dripping down the cone and onto my hand. My grandmother's ice cream, however, had not only begun to melt, but the cone was almost completely covered by melting ice cream.
I made it to Collins Avenue but just as I got there, the crosswalk signal changed from walk to stop. So I stood there for what seemed an eternity waiting for the traffic to subside, all the while practically gulping my coconut ice cream down and with Abuela's ice cream dripping down my hands and unto my wrist. I nervously paced up and down the one flag of the sidewalk where the crosswalk was.
When the traffic finally stopped and the signal changed, I bolted across the street and continued running full speed past the two motels on the way to the Hilyard. Coconut ice cream dripped all over my shorts and tshirt and chancletas and the street and the sidewalk.
I finally made it to the motel, passed its parking lot, passed the front office, passed the front stairwell and came to a screetching halt where my grandmother and grandfather waited for me, both grinning from ear to ear. One cone almost all licked away and the other whithered down by the August sun and heat. Coconut ice cream dripping all over my hand and down my forearm, and onto my elbow, where it gathered and dripped onto the concrete deck. A trail of ice cream drops lay behind me.
I handed Abuela her half melted cone, she grinned again, raised her eyebrows as if to say Hey you did it but it melted anyway both at the same time.
She licked the ice cream that had dripped over the cone, wrapped a paper towel around it and gave the remaining ice cream a lick all the way around at the top edge of the cone to keep it from dripping further. Then she looked me right in the eyes, smiled, and said "Como me gusta el helado de coco."
This melting of the coconut ice cream became almost a daily ritual. For years I ran the coconut ice cone gauntlet for my grandmother. Every year she would bet me I couldnt get back without the ice cream melting, every year I swore I could make it and every year I dashed back and forth between motel and ice cream parlor. Every year coconut ice cream ran down my hands and arms. And it wasnt until I was much older that I realized that she knew absolutely that first year and every subsequent year thereafter that the ice cream would undoubtedly melt on the way. But that first time, that first time she had duped me into the coconut ice cream relay.
What she never got to know, however, is that now I would gladly make that coconut ice cream run every single day of my life.
And this past weekend, as I stood in the sun and heat in St. Augustine, this first week in August, away from home, with a double scoop coconut ice cream cone in my hand, I was tempted to let it melt and drip down my hand and passed my arm and onto my elbow. Just to let that coconut ice cream drip into a little puddle at my feet. Just to feel like a kid again. Just to have my grandmother a little closer. Just to feel that freedom of childhood with nary any worries about responsibilities and news and events and life in general.
But I didnt, of course, 'cause I love coconut ice cream on a sugar cone.
Como me gusta el helado de coco.
Posted by Val Prieto at August 10, 2005 03:05 PM
Comments
Great post, Val! Vintage Val! And I'm savoring it! iSabroso!
Posted by: A.M. Mora y Leon at August 10, 2005 03:20 PM
Val, I was in a hurry and was not going to start reading what looked like a long story until later today. But, I started it and could not stop. Now I am sitting here wiping my tears away so I can go on with what had to wait. You are blessed with a real writing talent!
Posted by: Jose Aguirre at August 10, 2005 03:21 PM
I can feel the sun and taste the coconut, and shed some tears for a long ago childhood and family members. Great story, thanks Val.
Posted by: Kathleen at August 10, 2005 03:29 PM
Val, you choked me up, dude. You got me thinking of my abuelo Rogelio. He and I would go on Sunday movie outings to el Teatro Tower to watch whatever was playing. I remember him asking if I wanted to go see una pelicula con el agente cero-cero-siete. I always loved the 007 movies; he did too. I saw From Russia with Love, Goldfinger, and Thunderball on the big screen with my grandfather. The movies were subtitled in Spanish, of course, so he was able to understand what was going on. After the movie and before we went to the bus stop -- every time -- we would stop at La Perezsosa bakery, when it was next to the Tower Theater, and we would each order un Capitolio (a "Capitol": a cupcake, with merengue piled high up on it like a soft-serve cone, dipped in chocolate). Delicious. I can't find any in Miami that taste the same because he's not there to eat it with me. Almost forty years ago, and I still cherish those memories so much.
Posted by: George L. Moneo at August 10, 2005 03:30 PM
I remember that little lime green coin purse as if it were in front of me right now...
As you know, I don't like coconut, but I'd share a serving right now with my Abuela Chicha if I could.
Posted by: Amanda at August 10, 2005 04:12 PM
Val,
A couple of observations. My wife and I went to St. Augustine about 5 yrs ago and loved it. We of course stopped at Kilwin's for Ice Cream.
Your story is beautiful. Very descriptive, you have a gift.
And lastly you reminded me of the home made ice cream (mantecado) my grandmother used to make. I've never tasted a better ice cream in my life.
Posted by: conductor at August 10, 2005 05:50 PM
Aren't you lucky you happen to have a friend who makes coconut ice cream.
Posted by: Steve H. at August 10, 2005 07:49 PM
Val - listen to Jose and Conductor - they know what they are talking about. As do I. Your talent is big-league stuff, not amateur. I've never seen such a gift possessed by anyone, ever, on the blogosphere.
Let me tell you why that story is so good. Number one, it's not about ice cream, it's about a relationship. It's a relationship that is inherently sympathetic in itself, but it's all the more sympathetic because we fall in love with the two principal characters. It has a timeline factor - the old grandma at the end of life and the young boy at the beginning of life. The lives intersect, but each individual life has harbingers of beginnings and ends. The abuela's love of ice cream is obviously a symbol of youth. The nieto's action - it's a very manly action, getting something for a lady by racing against traffic, is inherently a conundrum to love and courtship. It makes one think that the boy in the story is going to treat some beautiful woman very royally when he grows up and marries - it's extremely sympathetic to the reader. The grandma is the youthful child here and the boy is the adult here, in this mysterious symmetry. The story is also very believable, moves at the right pace, and interesting in its detail.
Val, you have a gift, a Hemingway-grade gift, a gift that soars a lot higher than most authors who do get published. You're way above most. I am going to make sure that ever word you write gets engraved between leather.
Posted by: A.M. Mora y Leon at August 10, 2005 10:06 PM
Beautiful Val!!
thank you for sharing those wonderful memories with us>
I remember how my grandmother use to make us Natilla. Her Natilla was like no other!! no one could do it like she did...
Honestly, I don't think it had anything to do with the ingredients, or the flavors, it was all about the love, the stories she told while stirring the milk, sugar and cinammon, the wonderful aroma coming from that pot while she stood there patiently waiting for it to boil just right.
I miss that Natilla!!
Posted by: carmen at August 10, 2005 11:54 PM
Mora,
I dont know about the story being all that you mention. I simply wrote a recollection of my grandmother that was triggered by the coconut ice cream. It's not a piece that was written and edited and rewritten and re-edited. I basically sat down in front of the computer and typed. Took me about and hour or so.
Posted by: Val Prieto at August 11, 2005 07:28 AM
Then it's genius, Val. Hemingway did it like that too.
Posted by: A.M. Mora y Leon at August 11, 2005 09:03 AM
"Val, you have a gift, a Hemingway-grade gift"
Whoa, now A.M.! I might tend to agree with you there, but don't tell Val that! Gotta keep him humble.
Posted by: j.scott barnard at August 11, 2005 09:23 AM
Agree with everything Mora said - and in addition, at least with me, your stories trigger my own memories. I had completely forgotten that lady fingers existed, but when you mentioned them in the context of this story, I remembered my own long walks to the bakery with my own long-gone grandmother. She loved those pasteries - both the fresh ones from the bakery and the packaged ones from the grocery.
Your stories touch the human condition. It's a rare gift.
Posted by: Juan Paxety at August 11, 2005 09:32 AM
Now, see...that's what I want to see more of here.
That was beautiful Val. Thank you.
My grandmother liked "helado de tamarindo" and the only place we could find it was at a Cuban ice cream place "San Bernardo" - it used to be a small chain, but they're all gone now. We used to go to one en la Calle 8 y la diez-y-pico; tehre was also one on Flagler, Hialeah, etc.
Abi (my grandmother) would have tamarindo (way too bitter for my 6-7-8 year old palate), Mami would have anon or guanabana, Papi would have coco and I would have (en vasito, I was too slow to eat it on a barquillo) mamey or...mantecao! Remember mantecao (the flavor, not the generic term some use as synonymous with helado)?
I haven't had mantecao ice cream in years - how hard could it be to make? Why can't Versailles make it along with thier other homemade ice creams? For a while when I was a kid, my neighborhood ice cream truck sold mantecao - home-made by the ice cream man's wife - it was spectacular.
Does anyone know of any place in Miami that makes mantecao?
Posted by: Hilda at August 11, 2005 10:19 AM
Moneo writes:
"After the movie and before we went to the bus stop -- every time -- we would stop at La Perezsosa bakery, when it was next to the Tower Theater, and we would each order un Capitolio [SNIP]I can't find any in Miami that taste the same because he's not there to eat it with me."
Well, you can't replicate the "sabor" your grandfather's presence added, but you might be able to find the Capitolios at Perezsosa. Did you know they moved to a location in Coral Gables? The same owners are (or at least were a few months ago)at 808 Ponce de Leon (just off 8th st). I don't know if they still make the Capitolios, but it's worth a shot.
Perezsosa on Calle 8 was "our" bakery when I was a kid. My parents, Mami particularly, used to go to their bakery in Camaguey, so when she discovered they were here - we became puntos fijos. Her (and my) favorite from there were los "cake de sundae". There was no ice cream involved, they were (are?) an incredibly sweet cake soaked en almibar, with a yellow and chocolate frosting - way too sweet for me now "despues de vieja", but it was ambrosia back then.
And of course their bocaditos franceses (small, three layers, ham/cheese/a thread-thin layer of strawberry jam held together by a decorative toothpick) - YUMMY!
Posted by: Hilda at August 11, 2005 10:34 AM
Hilda,
Next time youre at Perezsosa, tell Cira and Carlos youre a good friend of mine. if you arent already, you'll get treated like family.
Posted by: Val Prieto at August 11, 2005 10:38 AM
Damn, man. That was beautiful.
Posted by: GrandMoffBubba at August 11, 2005 10:39 AM
Val writes:
"Next time youre at Perezsosa, tell Cira and Carlos youre a good friend of mine. if you arent already, you'll get treated like family."
Cira! I couldn't remember her name. Is Carlos still alive? Last I heard he was OK, but suffering from chronic heart problems, I think.
So they are still open! Still at the Ponce location? That place never had the ambiente of the calle 8 location...next to Domino Park.
It's been years, but for a while Cira and my mom were friends - they used to donate stuff to the school Mami worked in, etc. So, then you know that Gilbert of Gilbert's Bakery is their son-in-law. He makes the bocaditos franceses too.
Do they still make the "sundae"? Maybe we'll stop by this weekend with my mom.
Posted by: Hilda at August 11, 2005 11:31 AM
Oh my goodness! Now I have a craving for coconut ice cream. The ones that used to come in the coconut shell & you would eat it with a wooden spoon... Yum!!!
Posted by: bynki at August 11, 2005 12:48 PM
Please, stop it *right now* people!
There are no bocaditos, no mantecao, no coconut ice cream --no nothing of all that-- here in Maryland. The few Cubans spread out throughout the Washington, DC metropolitan area virtually live in a cultural desert, at leas when it comes to most Cuban delicacies. It just ain't easy!
So each and every one of you are *torturing* me!
Shame on you, Valbal'u Prieto!
Right now, my wife is traveling through South Florida, visiting family in both Miami-Dade and Broward Counties. And she *already* has purchased some pastelitos in *industrial quantities* to bring back to Maryland when she returns tomorrow (she even packed a special, hard-sided case just for this purpose).
I can't wait...!
Julio
Posted by: Julio C. Zangroniz at August 11, 2005 01:48 PM
On my visits to Miami I used to bring back gallons of guarapo (sugar cane juice). I can't do that now because it could be mistaken for some explosive liquid. I could use a glass right now.
Posted by: M.A.T. at August 11, 2005 05:52 PM
I started to read this at my office but i did good in not finishing it there. Just got home and read the whole thing.....wow Val you did it again....sitting here now drying up the tears thanks brother you bring me memories that are so worth remembering,,,,AGAIN THANK YOU!
Posted by: MIKE at August 11, 2005 06:02 PM
I lived in Milan from ages 2 to 4, when my dad the "former" intelligence community guy was supposedly a visiting professor there. The gelato is one of the few things I distinctly remember. Had some again when I next passed through, oh, 16 or 17 years later, and it was exactly the same.
Ice cream in the summer is a ephemeral bliss. Come up to Boston some time, Val: good stuff here. :-)
Posted by: Dave J at August 13, 2005 02:10 PM