Essential to my upbringing

I had a conversation with another graduate student who was from Florida once- it was the middle of the Steamy Hot Summer, and we went for lunch and she ordered HOT soup. I could feel myself passing out just looking at it- but she said growing up in Florida, she never ate soup to warm up- she just ate soup. And I realized, that growing up in Alaska, I never eat ice cream to cool off- in fact, I find it disconcerting to have your ice cream melting faster than you can eat it. Keep that in mind.

A recent and welcome addition to the neighborhood is a new Frozen Yogurt shop called RazzyFresh. In a area blocks from a Coldstone, Baskin Robbins, Ben&Jerry's and a Rita's (regional favorite), this seems like a fool hearty venture. But it is SO much better than any of those. You pay by weight, which makes it fun- you can pick any of the flavors of the week, in any quantity that seems sufficient- and ooo the fruit flavors are to die for. Honeydew tastes like fresh melon, raspberry tastes like summer and the Original is a tart 'unsweetened yogurt' flavor that I wish I could eat for breakfast. Swirl a few of those together, and THEN, take it to the toppings bar. Oh yes, a salad bar with an array of fresh chopped fruits, nuts, syrups (including sweetened condensed milk and honey) and all the crumbled cookies and chocolate goobahs a 6 year old could ask for. I've heard other places have similar ventures- if there is anything like this near you- I highly recommend you try it. We got a punch card when the opened at the beginning of last month, and let's just say we are well on our way to getting out 10th free. It such a nice and refreshing treat, and a nice excuse to go out together.

So tonight, oblivious to the 50 degree weather- we walked up to try some (more). It's a teeny little place- just enough space for a couple tables beside the toppings bar. By the time we assembled our raspberry, cheesecake, taro-original swirl with a veritable fruit salad on top, there was no where to sit- so we walked down the street to a bench to share out yogurt. After a few weird looks I suppose it might be considered weird to eat fro-yo with a coat zipped up to your throat, but what do I care? It's delicious.