Cooking With Ideas

Organic Marin

What seems sometimes just yesterday but is actually years ago, I visited a friend who had moved to Marin County to work for/begin a restaurant consulting firm. I saw pictures from that trip recently in cleaning through boxes -- piles of oyster shells (and a memory of learning about oyster farming), bicycling on Angel Island, and flying (yes, I even had a moment when I was ostensibly maneuvering the plane) in a small plane over San Francisco Bay and Marin County). I remember the brown-y yellow of the dry hills and the sun.  All this came to mind when I opened the mail a while ago and found Organic Marin: Recipes from Land to Table by Tim Porter and Farina Wong Kingsley. With a cover beautifully depicting veggies in a basket (the radishes are particularly attractive), the hard back book opened immediately to a page (47) with other memories because of its short description of Cowgirl Creamery. Why is this memorable? On a much more recent trip to San Francisco, and the swell Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market, I discovered this excellent cheese, the Straus Family Creamery (depicted on p. 141) and McEvoy Olive Oil (p.67) , for example. And there's always Green Gulch Farm (see p. 110), the farm which is linked forever in my mind to the San Francisco Zen Center and to their restaurant, Greens. Photographer Tim Porter is described on the backleaf as having "an extensive background in newspaper and magazine journalism and as co-author of News, Improved: How America's Newspapers are Learning to Change. Farina Wong Kingsley  is described as "a culinary instructor at Tante Marie's Cooking School in San Francisco and a consulting chef for San Francisco's Center for Culinary Development" as well as a "contributor to numerous cookbooks." More information appears there, as well, on Marin Magazine, the book's producer.  Most crucial, perhaps, is the following statement from the front leaf of the book: 

proceeds of this book support Marin Organic's school lunch program which helps serve 12,000 lunches a week with food grown in Marin County. 

So: memories. An evocative book in many ways. But what about Organic Marin itself? It is filled with beautiful photographs and tempting recipes, along with snippets of thises and thats (see above) and a resource list in the back. Arranged seasonally, the focus is also very much on local foods, some of which will most definitely not be local for, say, those of us in the Finger Lakes. And yet, this is, the book claims, the original site of much of today's emphasis on local, on organic, on eco-friendly/sustainable agriculture, etcetera. The book uses the phrase "community of values" well --and makes the important point, too, that for a sustainable farm to be sustainable it needs income! Embedded in all this are what I think of as biographies (?) of organizations -- ranches and farms, honorign both the land and those who work with that land. (Honoring, indeed, both hard work and fun, as many of those quoted make evident.) The book also shares a vision we might all take up: linking organic farmers to government with an eventual goal of creating an organic county. Now there's a goal upstate NY might share; might Ontario County adopt a similar goal? 

Beyond all this, Organic Marin is certainly a book with tempting recipes for dishes from start to finish of a meal including, for example:

Blood Orange and Star Anise-Braised Pork

Gnocchi with Morels and Peas 

Braised Short Ribs with Candied Meyer Lemon Gremolata

Double Chocolate Bread Pudding

(Yes, I am on to comfort food today). The recipes come from restaurants from the San francisco Bay Area that support local organic farmers and ranchers. (Of course, not all ingredients are local even to Marin County.) And they definitely meet their stated goal: to inspire. 

For another review of this book, click here. For Marin Organic, the association of organic producers highlighted in the book, click away here. And for Marin Agricultural Land Trust, move your mouse here and click! 

Live Free or Die: New Hampshire Eats

The official motto of the state of New Hampshire is "Live Free or Die." This does not mean food is free in New Hampshire, though I do like the general idea of no sales taxes (except when I think about all teh social services and other services NH does not provide). Anyway, no free lunch here -- or wherever Milton Friedman is these days (recently mentioned to me in the same breath with the University of Chicago -- must the university suffer for an eternity on his behalf?). (The phrase, a googling expedition has taught me, may have a totally different history, but that it neither here nor there for today's purpose.) And what is that purpose? No, it is not a covert message sent through a stream of allusions. It is to review a few places I have eaten in New Hampshire. 

Sal's Pizza (in Merrimack, NH) claims to be "Straight from Boston's North End." One of several of the same name located mostly in MA and NH, they make pretty darn spectacular pizza. I have had it before, but this time, I drove up to the pale yellow clapboard building and took away a large pepperoni piszza. It was fresh out of the oven and delightful. Just the right amount of gooey-ness and just the right amount of pepperoni. Not quite greasy, the slice bent just right as I moved it toward my mouth. I was soooo glad to resist the temptation of the spinach feta pizza in favor of the old-standby. A sign inside said they also sell ziti in various forms. I saw cannoli and cookies and soda and all sorts of things. But hey, pepperoni pizza it was. The ambience is not too bad -- a sort of classic pizza  dive kinda joint. Try it, you'll like it. Where? In Merrimack at 501 Daniel Wester Highway; phone 603-424-3000. For other locations, try here. 

T-Bone's offers it own commentary in its "sub-title": the Great American Eatery. Like places of this sort, it has a pretty big menu, and lots of sandwiches, salads, etcetera. Not much in the way of ambience, and way too air conditioned. So,  I was pleasantly surprised. What did I eat? I had a chicken finger basket, which came with chicken fingers, french fries, one large onion ring. And, the chicken fingers were light and actually tasted of chicken. The honey mustard sauce was not cloying. And the onion ring (I ate half) was delightful. I had a small (maybe 5 mouthfuls) of macaroni and cheese with it. Just the right balance of macaroni and cheese, a bit toasty on the top. Comfort food. I am pretty badly off my food, but I ate maybe half of the meal and 4 glasses of raspberry ice tea. And what I left of the food was a shame because it was actually swell. A genre, for sure, but this version a good exemplar of its type. Where is T Bone's? 25 South River Road, Bedford NH. Phone 603-641-6100. 

King Kone, shown below (from this site with thanks) is on  the D. W. HIghway in Merrimack, 

 It is a soft serve ice cream joint. I had what was called a baby cup of twist chocolate and peanut butter. The latter was pretty lightly flavored. I had jimmies on the top - chocolate jimmies at that and loads of them. In my view, the parts of the world that call those little oddities jimmies are vastly superior to the parts of the world that mistakenly call them sprinkles. Anyway, the baby size cup costs $1.35 and is huge. So huge, I did not come close to finishing. And sitting in the back seat of the car, eating it, I thought of visits to the Dairy Queen with my father. MMMMMM. Nostalgia. Address: 336 Daniel Webster Highway, Merrimack, NH Phone 603-424-6848. 

Joey's Diner is a retro-sorta place in Amherst, NH where the waitresses actually wear poodle skirts (though the effect is somewhat ruined by their tendency to wear adidas with them). Yes, the place is filled with retro-kitsch: coca-cola machine doors to the bathrooms, a car coming out of the wall, signs for Sinclair gasoline and Texaco, oldies from the 1950s (and early 1960s perhaps) playing, tins for Charles Chips and various metal children's pedal cars and pedal airplanes hanging from the ceiling. The menu is pretty standard; I had macaroni and cheese. Not the best I have ever had, a a disheartening white color, but adequate. I accompanied it with a frappe, which is New England for milkshake elsewhere. Rumor has it from one other diner that the monte cristo sandwich is good there. And I did witness a reuben disappear quite thoroughly along with a plate of french fries. So, where is this time traveling diner destination? 1 Craftsman Lane, Amherst, NY. Phone 603-577-8955. 

All these places are, of course, not fine dining. But they serve a dandy form of comfort food and do it reasonably well. So, when you're in NH eat eat eat. 

Stephanie Plum Eats

I admit it: I am a fan of Janet Evanovich. Have been for ages. Her books are perfect when you do not want to think. They remind me, though set in TRenton, of certain aspects of the area where I grew up. They remind me of big hair and accents. And, of course, they are sooooo realistic and such dense prose. Anyway, I love them and yes, on occasion they have to do with food. Here is the first little bit of Fearless Fourteen, which I am reading to fend off real life:

In my mind, my kitchen is filled with crackers and cheese, roast chicken leftovers, farm fresh eggs, and coffee beans ready to grind. The reality is that I keep my Smith & Wesson in the cookie jar, my Oreos in the microwave, a jar of peanut butter and hamster food in the over-the-counter cupboard, and I have beer and olives in the refrigerator. I used to have a birthday cake in the freezer for emergencies, but I ate it. 

Truth is, I would dearly love to be a domestic goddess, but the birthday cake keeps getting eaten. I mean, you buy it, and you eat it, right? And then where are you? No birthday cake. Ditto cheese and crackers and eggs and the roast chicken leftovers (which were from my mother). The coffee beans are light-years away. I don't own a grinder. I guess I could buy two birthday cakes, but I'm afraid I'd eat them both. (page 1)

Somehow, this was the perfect thing to read this morning. Thanks to Janet and to Stephanie Plum

August is. . . .

August is the shift from Leo to Virgo. How thrilling. August's flower is the gladiolus or the poppy. It is, you will be gald to know, both Women's Small Business Month and the month of the Edinburgh fringe theater festival. So, if you are a Virgo who loves theater, or a Leo who is a woman -- or just like poppies. this is your month. 

August is also:

National Ice Tea Month

according to American Food and Drink Days. For a list of some August food holidays, see this blog -- and then celebrate. Or, read this -- a piece from Slate which declares "August is the Mississippi of the calendar." Or, perhaps you could read Judith Rossner's novel August (I have a vague memory of loving it and re-reading it several times; but that was the 1980s), visit the Restaurant August in new Orleans -- and follow that trend of eating in places that are named for the date on which you are eating? Or,wait, maybe you can start that trend. August: wow. Have fun if you can. 

Eating in Rome: And I Do NOT Mean Rome, NY . . . Not that There's Anything Wrong with That

Guest Blogger, Michael Tinkler, of The Cranky Professor, is an art historian at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. Here's what he has to say on "Food in Rome": 

I'd like to thank Bibliochef for the kind offer to guest-blog here about eating in Rome.  I've been to Rome and Italy just often enough to know that eating in Rome isn't eating in Italy - Italians are incredibly local in their patterns.  Until quite recently a foreign restaurant in Rome served Venetian or Abruzzese food.  Nowadays one can find Chinese restaurants and Moroccan restaurants and such in Rome - but I really haven't bothered with them.  These are notes on eating in Rome, some of which applies elsewhere in Italy.  

Likewise, with only a few exceptions I'm going to stick to the neighborhood I lived in this year (2008), between Ponte San Angelo and Piazza Navona (rione Parione).  Restaurants in Rome sometimes seem to have the same menu;  one judges restaurants by elegant variations on traditional elements.  So the restaurants you can find in your neighborhood will vary, but not by as much as you might think.  Season is probably more important than price-point.  Salads of puntarelle with an anchovy sauce are only available in the early springtime, then they're gone.  Everyone has them for a few weeks.

Let me take your through some of the possibilities for your days in Roma.

MORNING - Italians have a little something baked and coffee, either at home or at a bar.  Bars are not bars as we think of them in America, nor are they coffee shops, though some of them offer seating.  Bear in mind this general principle - it's always cheaper to stand - and you sometimes pay as much as a 100% premium to order table service.  

A bare majority of Italians have a latte first thing in the morning, though plenty of folks have an espresso (a caffè ).  A caffè americano,an espresso with some boiling water, won't raise an eyebrow.  After all, you're not an Italian and they don't expect you to pretend.  The two basic baked goods for breakfast are the cornetto and the cornetto con crema - something like a croissant but less devoted to flakiness.  I always have a cornetto con crema.  If I'm shameless, I will sometimes walk a block or so to the next bar on my list and have another round, but ordering a second latte would indeed raise eyebrows.

There are bars everywhere.  Try a lot of them!  Though there's hardly any point in making recommendations, two of my favorites were Bar Amore (via Banchi Nuovi 41) and Gerri's Bar (Corso Vittorio Emmanuele II & Vicolo Savelli - nice seating indoors).

MIDMORNING -hit a different bar, but try un caffè instead of a caffelatte.   Romans flood out of offices and schools into the bars around 10 or 11.

EARLY AFTERNOON - You have four excellent possibilities for lunch in Rome - grabbing something in a market, stand-up food, sit-down pizza, or a full meal.  I'll postpone discussing the full meal to Night.

On the hoof -  You can always hit an outdoor market or grocery store and buy fruit, bread, cheese, and whatever else makes you happy.  Remember that the fountains of Rome, unless they are explicitly labeled non potabile, have clean, cold, and delicious water.  The little street side fountains, fontanelle, are excellent places to wash fruit.  You might also carry an empty bottle to refill with water - at this exchange rate why on earth pay a Euro every time you want a bottle of water when the fontanelle are free?

Stand-up food - Italians never charge as much if you eat at the bar or carry something away.  There are hundreds of places that serve pizza by the slice - pizza a taglia is a sign to look for.  Order by holding your hands apart for the size of slice you want.  You can have it heated or not - then you'll be charged by weight.  This kind of pizza is often pan cooked with a thicker crust than the fire cooked pizzas.  I love the potato pizza - the whole surface will be covered with a shingling of pizza slices, sprinkled with olive oil, spices (usually rosemary?), and baked.  Yum!  And hearty!  There are good places like this everywhere.  This kind of establishment usually also sells supplì, rice and cheese croquettes.  Two or three of these and a drink are a great lunch - and they make a nice appetizer with a pizza slice, too.  I'd buy them and take them home to refrigerate and eat them cold for lunch on my own.  

One of the greatest - and cheapest - pizza by weight places is on the Campo de'Fiori.  It says FORNO - "Oven" -  in big letters above the door.  The simplest pizza is either white pizza, pizza bianca (just oil and garlic) or red, pizza rosso, (red sauce), but they have many others.  Again, point and move your hands - and watch out for the crowd!  It can get smotheringly packed in there about noon.  The pizza-man will wrap your selection in wax paper and bag it, weigh it, and hand you a ticket.  Take that to the cashier - grab a drink from the cooler, if you like - and pay. Take your pizza and cut a block over to the Piazza Farnese to eat in peace and quiet on the side of fountain, or stay in the Campo de'Fiori for local color.  It's hard for one person to spend three Euro at Forno for lunch, without a drink.

Bars offer another kind of standup food - sandwiches and panini.  Tramezzini, triangular sandwiches on white bread, come in amazing varieties of fillings.  I liked shrimp and tomato this winter, but you should experiment.  If you have your caffe after 10 a.m. you will usually see the bar folks starting to make their sandwiches for the lunch rush.  Panini - do we italicize this any more in America?  I think not - are also premade, and usually very poorly labelled in the cold case!  I always have to point and ask what on earth they are, unless there are clear bits of arugula sticking out around the edges of some prosciutto.  The norm is for sandwiches to be heated up and served in a napkin.  Italians regard touching sandwiches with your fingers as abominable and unclean.  Unfortunately, this often leads to melted cheese sticking to napkins, but one must sacrifice for la bella vita.  A meal with a couple of tramezzini or a panino and a beer or a soft drink will probably run 5 Euro or so.

Sit-down pizza, al forno - 

The closest pizzeria to my apartment this spring was Pizzeria Baffetto (via del Governo Vecchio 114).  Baffetto shows up in all sorts of guide books and it really is amazingly good - but theyr'e only open for supper and you have to stand in line to get in.  Their location over near Campo de'Fiori is open for lunch, but it's kind of soulless.  

For an amazing pizza at lunch time with the leisure of table service and the chance to eat in the sun (or just outdoors under a propane heater in the winter time) go to Pizzeria dal Paino (via di Parione 34, closed Tuesday).  I ate here constantly this year - and in previous years.  The service is lovely, and if you stay long enough there's plenty of family drama going on.  

Roman pizza al forno should be cracker-thin and light on the sauce by most American expectations, and the normal way to order them is one per person. Total doneness of crust even under the center is the hallmark of a good one - with crackly edges for fun.  Margherita, with mozzarella and tomato sauce, is the classic, but I love dal Paino's Four Cheese with zucchini flowers.  Pizzas with lots more on them, like mushrooms and onions and sausage, are splendid, too - but more likely to be damp in the center.  A family might order a large to share, but it's not all that common.  

Pizza, a quarter or half-liter of house wine, and dessert will run 15 or 16 euro.  I usually go for a half-liter and no dessert and keep it to 12, which is still a depressing amount of money for a pizza.  Don't think about it, just eat.  

LATE AFTERNOON - Many Romans have a drink between work and heading home for dinner.  If you don't like Campari (and I don't), prosecco is a classic afternoon drink, and many bars with outdoor seating will bring complimentary salty crunchy things with drinks.  Italian mixed drinks are under-iced, but if there are 2 or 3 people ordering gin and tonics even the hardest hearted waiter can be prevailed upon to bring a side-bowl of ice for the Americans.  And in Italy in the summer it's worth admitting that you're a tourist for ice.  They knew anyway.

bridging the gap - Happy hour is a new concept in Rome, where one celebrates evening with aperitivi, or "drinks."  The best versions are wine bars with buffets of little munchables - the buffet either included in the drink price or separately priced for something like 3 euros.  This is a great idea if you're finding Roman dinner hour too late to support - aperitivi start at 6 or 7. I'll give two excellent and rather different examples, neither in Parione.

In Trastevere, within sight of the Tiber - such as views of the river go in Rome - is Freni e Frizioni (via del Politeama 4-6).  Cross the Ponte Sisto footbridge from the Campo de'Fiori neighborhood, cross the Lungotevere (the street paralleling the river embankment), and go left about a block.  Freni e Frizioni is in a converted garage - the name means "Brakes and Clutches," after all - and the service parking lot has been converted into a terrace.  Drinks are 5 euro for beer or wine, with several selections of each.  I believe mixed drinks (mojitos are big in Rome, too) are 6 or 7.  The generous buffet is included.  They have raw vegetable crudités (not a common feature in Rome - if you stay for a semester you'll be surprised how glad you are to see celery sticks), cous cous with various sauces, roasted chicken cut into finger-food pieces, chips and dips, bean salads, a pasta or two with sauces, and other nice items.  You can easily make a light meal out of the evening - and both inside and outside are comfortable.  The crowd is young and rather loud.

A more adult version of the same event is Gusto winebar (Piazza Augusto Imperatore 9) - upstream a few bridges from the Ponte Sisto at the Altar of Peace of Augustus.  Visit the new Richard Meier-encased Ara Pacis on a Thursday evening when they're open late (8?  9?) and then go have aperitive at 'Gusto.  'Gusto is a small empire of food scattered around different parts of the building - wander around and decide where you want to go - I went to the wine bar this year, but the osteria (sit down restaurant) is good, too.  The wine list is impressive and the staff is happy to make suggestions based on the simplest tastes - do you prefer structured wines?  sweet wines?  Give them a chance and they'll find you something.  I think the wines for aperitivi ran about 8-10 euro a glass with the complimentary buffet of fancy finger foods.  The crowd was more 30s than 20s and much better dressed, if that's the kind of people-watching you're in the mood for.

NIGHT - One distressing truth about Italy is that eating at nice restaurants for lunch wins you no price break - so have your bigger meal when it works for your schedule.   We no longer have the built-in excuse of museums closing for lunch to drive us out into the restaurant world, but there are certainly days when a long midday break is appropriate. Peak dinner hour starts at 9 or even 10 on warm nights.  Americans who stroll into a restaurant at 7 usually eat alone, if they're served at all.  

When I went to Rome for a semester in 2003 my parents found me a handy little book, Cheap Eats, Italy.   Sadly, it had not been updated, because I never had a bad meal out of it.  One of their selections in rione Parione is on the via dei Coronari, a long, straight street lined with very expensive antique shops.  Ristorante Tre Archi (via dei Coronari 223, close to the Piazza Navona outlet of this pretty, mainly pedestrian) is a typical, simple Roman restaurant.  Soup, secondo, wine, and water comes to about 18 euro.  Their tortellini in brodo is excellent. Secondi, meat dishes, run the range, though I think I always had either roast lamb with potatoes - a classic Roman dish - or a veal chop.  I don't believe I ever had a dessert, which isn't fair to them, but I've always gone there planning to save money.  

Just off the via dei Coronari is Osteria del Pegno (vicolo di Montevecchio, 8 - hard to spot, but worth hunting for!).  I like this restaurant a lot - it's one small room and one big room, and maybe seats 30 people total.  The glass doors of the big room open up on warm days and evenings and the front tables scoot out into the street.

Osteria del pegno's fettuccine and ravioli are both worth the effort it might take to find the restaurant.  My rule of thumb - if you don't understand a word on the menu, don't pretend.  Ask.  Italian restaurant staff love to talk about food.  Real Italians don't seem to order off menus (though they do if you watch them often enough).  But especially when Italians are out with family for a special night at a favorite restaurant they will start by asking what's good tonight - and that's just the kind of thing to get the staff talking.

During the winter I occasionally (see prices below) had roasted meats here - lamb or rabbit - which always come with roasted potatoes or other root vegetables.  Roman roasted lamb is cut - umm - differently from ours.  Necks are often included, as is the occasional kidney.  I was not surprised that I liked kidneys, because i like that kind of thing in general, but I'm sure there are folks who would be appalled.  Rabbit is rabbit, and in shop windows looks distressingly like skinned cat.  I hope the flavor is different - or maybe we should be eating more cat.  One of the best things to eat in Rome is lombata di vitello, veal loin chop cooked on the grill.  They're characteristically cooked to what we might call medium or medium rare unless you ask for it to be pink (rosa).

I believe this is where I first ate a semifreddo - a cold custard dessert.  Dreamy - but summertime only.  Their other desserts, particularly the torta della nonna, the house cake, are worthwhile, too.

Primo, secondo, water, wine, and a dessert runs about 35 euro - and if you're an appreciative eater you'll not unlikely get a free limoncello or grappa afterwards.  Reservations are often necessary on weekends and even on weeknights if you show up after 9 with a party of 2 or more - telephone 06.688.07.025.  Closed Tuesday.

Across the Corso Vittorio Emmanuele II from the Chiesa Nuova (which was about where I lived this spring) is Trattoria da Luigi (piazza sforza Cesarini, 25 - closed Monday?).  Da in Italian is like chez in French restaurant names - "house of, place of."  Da Luigi has wonderful outdoor tables, and is a great place to have a long, late sunny lunch or a long, late, evening dinner in warm weather.  Inside is cozier - lots of little rooms upstairs and down.  

If you eat inside you walk in to confront a big table of prepared things - items ready to dish out for antipaste or to carry back into the kitchen to heat up and serve.  Remember what I said about asking?  Pointing and asking about a bowl full of minature octopuses got me an amazing plateful of moscardini one night, 2 inch octopuses that had been stewed, I think, in a very spicy tomato sauce.  I was stunned.  They also did a very good fried artichoke, the essential carciofi alla giudea of Rome.  I could eat them all night long if restaurants didn't price them so unfairly.  Why should they cost 4.50 euros apiece?  or 6?  It's wicked, I tell you!  Most side vegetables, contorni, are priced separately - and you can eat them before the pasta or with your meat.  5 euros is not an uncommon price.

I eat fish at da Luigi a lot - maybe because the first time I went there was a steamy June evening and we had carpaccio of sword fish for an antipasto and for a secondo I had grilled turbot (rombo - common on menus in Rome).  For whatever reason, I enjoy fish there a lot.  If you order a whole roast or grilled fish the waiter usually walks the fish out for display in its pan and asks if you would like to fillet it.  Leave it to the professionals!   I had a trout once this spring that was perfect - and hardly a bone left in it.  I would've left enough to test my knowledge of medical Italian with an emergency room doctor.

One of my indulgences this year was to go to da Luigi and have a salad, a pasta or soup, and then a pear stewed in red wine and prunes for dessert - a perfect winter dessert, cooked so the redness penetrates the outer 1/8th of an inch of the pear flesh.  Maybe it's middle age coming on strong, but stewed fruit is more and more appealing these days.  My more indulgent dinners, when I'd have a secondo and a vegetable, ran 35-40 euro.

I never had trouble walking in and getting a table, but I always ate here alone this year and did it just frequently enough that they squeezed me in sometimes.  Calling ahead might be wise - telephone: 06.686.5946.

Enjoy Rome if you get a chance soon - and eat something for me!

(Or, Bibliochef says: Live vicariously thanks to Michael aka The Cranky Professor, where this guest blog is cross posted!) 

National Ice Cream Sandwich Day

Ok, I am obsessed these days with Bizarre Food Holidays and related matters. This time my alertness to the big day came from my second favorite holiday-related site --actually better organized than Bizarre Food Holidays -- American Food Holidays. Check out this link that American Food Holidays provides for today. 

Me? Definitely not persuaded by the link. Making yourown ice cream sandwiches seems to me to be a bit obscene. My idea of a perfect ice cream sandwich is actually the kind where the paper sort of sticks on, the chocolate cookie thingie is sorta weird card-board-y and soft, the ice cream melting a bit etcetera. They disappear too quickly and you feel a bit sinful having a second one (but on occasion you do). Sort of iconic. Or not. But I just like them once in a while. 

Oh well. It's still a holiday. National Ice Cream Sandwich Day. Buy a friend an ice cream sandwich.