Chocolate Favoris

In early April I made a post about a chocolate coated ice cream store that was opening in Guelph, and how I was excited about it because over five years ago, me and a group of people went to one of them in Quebec City. Being the only person in the group to not speak French, I responded "non" to a question regarding my order and walked away with a plain ice cream cone when the place was known for their chocolate, not their ice cream.

This was in Canada World Youth, and in this program we had an anger management exercise where we were supposed to consider if we would still be angry in five hours, days, weeks, months, or years, and if we wouldn't be, is it really worth getting angry over to begin with? I would use this as a bit and explain how after five years, I was still angry that I didn't get my chocolate, and so yes, it was worth getting angry about.

I recently facilitated a Safe Management course, and after the first session, me and my co-facilitator went out for ice cream.

We got into the store and I ordered a large, crunchy hazelnut with dark chocolate. The person I was ordering from asked me what my name was, so I said "Gryphon", to which he responded, "Oh sorry, I should have asked you what your name is" which was confusing but inconsequential.

I was in a crew of six, composed of me, my co-facilitator, her husband and child, and one of her friends. They all got their orders before I did. I started to think "Something's going to happen, life won't let me have this." Then I see my cone in preparation. Man, the large was a LOT larger than I was expecting! There were like, five scoops on it! The dude looked super concentrated as he balanced the cone and prepared to dip it in the chocolate. This place just opened, so it's not like these people are seasoned ice cream preppers.

He dunks it in and I wonder what happens if the ice cream falls out. Would he have to replace the entire vat of chocolate? But it comes out, the mountain of chocolate coated ice cream wobbles back and forth before being cemented in place as the chocolate hardens.

He drizzles a little bit of another blend of chocolate on top, then sprinkles shaved hazelnut, and starts placing chocolate covered hazelnut on top. All the way through the cone looks unstable and I want to tell him to stop playing with it and just give me the cone. But I wait and the end result was glorious. He was actually getting praised by his fellow ice cream people for his craftsmanship.

Even though it had hardened, I still felt cautious about handling it, just because the ice cream stack was so humongous and the cone itself was so tiny. It looked like something out of a cartoon.

My co-facilitator was surprised at how well I managed to keep the ice cream out of my beard. Chocolate coated ice cream is one of the most difficult things to eat with a beard, by the way. The first time I tried it, way back in Katimavik, I wound up looking like I had straight up mashed my face into a bowl of ice cream. And that was with a regular sized cone without any additional adornments. Taking down this behemoth of a cone was like the ultimate test of all my practice eating messy things with a beard.

Somehow I managed to eat the whole thing. Pretty pricey. $10 for a freaking cone of ice cream. If I ever go back (and I probably will, my mother and brother want to go), the medium is more than enough, but I'm kind of glad I did the large on that trip. I'd waited over five years for it, after all.

It was brought up, what would have happened if I had said "Oui" that first time in Quebec City. There is no way I would have been able to navigate the menu. So I was able to retroactively determine that, while disappointing, I actually made the right call all those years ago. Talk about closure.

On the second Safe Management session, my co-facilitator asked me to tell the ice cream story. She'd taken a picture of me with the ice cream cone (I'll try to get a copy of it) and it kept being referenced throughout the session.

The previous day I had preached about self care and the importance of a healthy diet in regard to mental wellness. Then afterwards, I stuffed my face with ice cream.

I got an interview for the Summer Program. They're making me do the group interview though, which I haven't had to do since my first time. Making me jump through the hoops.