Custard's Last Stand

Growing up I thought Custard was rice pudding and I didn't want any part of it. However, once I started calling it "ice cream" no matter what it's true ingredients were, I no longer cared, as long as it was frozen and creamy. :)

This past weekend I rediscovered the Famous Frozen Dairy Bar, a Falls Church staple since the 50’s.

The last time I had been to this fantastic place they were located on Rt. 29 and had the machine to make twistee dipped cones (for those of you who are uninitiated, a twistee is vanilla & chocolate, twisted together in a delightful upward swirl of delight, and dipped means they upend it in liquid chocolate which immediately hardens into the most amazing chocolate shell.)

The Frozen Dairy bar had disappeared off my radar screen for a few years. Then suddenly, Peekay mentions that she and Steve-o had stopped for these great frozen custard treats in waffle cones, and DING-DING-DING! Suddenly I could think of nothing else but those twistee custard cones.

Of course, when Peekay mentioned that Steve-O had prescriptions at the CVS, I graciously offered my taxi service to Peekay because she is just too pregnant to drive. And if we just so happened to walk into the Frozen Dairy bar afterwards, well, who could blame us? We were fighting the hordes of crazies who were jostling for parking places so they could go to the IHOP for their Rootie-Tootie-Fresh & Frooty fixes. So, if we decided to get some ice cream before we had to go back out to the parking lot, who could blame us?

We went in the door and I discovered what Heaven smells like. All of those people who like to speculate on the afterlife and what it’s like … I can tell them exactly. It is a frozen dairy counter, cinnamon waffle cones and the smell in that shop. While we were debating on what to have, our attention was caught by the calendar that listed the daily specials. We missed Death By Chocolate by one day. Dammit.

When my number is up, that’s how I want to go.

We settled for chocolate and vanilla scoops (no more twistee cones, sad to say) in vanilla cones with chocolate sprinkles. As the frozen dairy angel was making our treats, we discovered the “to-go” freezer so conveniently packed with a multitude of delights. Peekay pounced on the vanilla custard sandwiched with Oreo Cookies, labeled “lazy cow.”

Now, I have to say, much as I like their frozen custard, I don’t really appreciate their marketing efforts.

I’ve seen “skinny cows” in the frozen section at the grocery stores (for those of you on a low fat diet, craving an ice cream treat, you MUST seek these out. Go NOW! Run if you have to, they are worth it!) and that name I get. There are these svelte, sexy cows parading across the label. However, “Lazy Cow” does not present the same pleasing effect. In fact, they might as well get it over with and just call these what they meant to “You Fat Ass Lazy Cow … you know you’re going to eat all 8 of these yourself, don’t even try to pretend!”

See what I mean?

After that, I decided that I was going to pass on the “Lazy Cows” and just have my walk-away cone … with 3 scoops of chocolate and vanilla ... and a liberal coating of chocolate sprinkles … for $.45 extra … worth every penny.