A cure for the summertime blues

And no, it's not my husband doing his "beach walk" in a man-thong. Contrary to the song, I'm pretty sure I've discovered an antidote to bad attitudes caused by this lousy summer weather we've been having (e.g. hail and 6 degree temperatures in July?!?): Death by Chocolate.

The first summer D and I started dating, he took me on a motorbike ride to the Pine River Cheese factory for an ice cream cone. He was slowly discovering my obsession with ice cream - I ate either it or gelato almost every night in Waterloo - and promised me that Pine River ice cream would be "the best ice cream you've ever tasted." And it was.

It's not actually made by Pine River - it's from Kawartha Dairies, wayyy up north. But my heavens, it's good. The only ice cream I've ever had to rival it is from Cochrane, Alberta and that's just too darned far away.

This summer, my sister Tanzi and I discovered a new flavour: Death by Chocolate. You can order 1.5 litre tubs from the Cheese Factory - another discovery - and so far this summer, we've gone through one Black Cherry, two Vanillas and we're on our second DBC. And it's only July! But man, oh man, this ice cream is to die for. Their vanilla is creamy, fluffy and smooth and the Black Cherry seems to be a favourite with the guys, but my sister and I (and any other female visitor) prefer DBC. The website describes it as "Chocolate ice cream with bittersweet dark chocolate chunks and thick chocolate twister sauce" but I prefer to describe it simply as YUM.

Doesn't matter if it's cold, dark and damp outside; inside it's all sunshine and happiness as long as I have a bowl of DBC in front of me.

Hmmm. Is 7:17am too early for ice cream?