Gelato

My energy was drained. My mind was as a desert- dry, barren… vacant. The glass of my psyche was neither half full nor half empty. It was completely barren. As I approached Capanna’s Coffee & Gelateria, I was admittedly pessimistic. I don’t drink coffee. Ever. It seems to me that coffee is not entirely unlike the liquid remains of chewing tobacco. It seemed clear to me that Capanna was not going to be my savior.

I paced back and forth, scanning the interior. “How tragic,” I thought, “that this lovely little shop would waste such a warm, welcoming environment on coffee.” My mind raced, or at least tried to. My tank was on empty, and there seemed to be no fuel in sight. Then, in the midst of this desert, my skin screamed, as a sailor crying out that land is in sight. The hair on my arms stood up, pointing like a compass to what I would soon discover to be the very Oasis I had been longing for.

“Gelato,” explains Wikipedia, “is Italy's regional variant of ice cream. As such, gelato is made with some of the same ingredients as most other frozen dairy desserts. Milk, cream, various sugars, flavoring including fruit and nut purees are the main ingredients.” These are the facts about gelato. But they are not the truth about gelato. The truth is, gelato is the nectar of the gods. Gelato has only two real ingredients: milk and honey, and Capanna’s is flowing with both.

Sample after sample, I tried every flavor under the sun, rejoicing in the knowledge that my decision was no longer to live in agony or to die in defeat. No, now I was merely deciding which side of heaven to visit. I decided upon lemon. Bold. Tangy. Lemon. To this day, I have never tasted anything so refreshing, so invigorating. And Friday, April 1, 2011 will go down as the day that Gelato renewed my hope in our world.

-David