Monday, September 8, 2008

Of Nostalgia and Chocolate-Flavored Parafin Wax...

For some reason, members of the Bear Squad have been rumbling about wanting to find a Dairy Queen for a while now. There's something about chocolate-dipped soft-serve ice cream that seems to be of interest to them. So when I knew we'd be heading up northwards, I did some research to see if, just maybe, there was a Dairy Queen anywhere along our route.

As it turns out, in Glen, NH (just north of Conway) there is. So, after finishing our drive on the Kancamagus Highway, we rumbled our way north up route 16 (towards the nightmare of Story Land, which was mercifully, closed by the time we were in the area.) it took about 10-15 minutes from Conway to find the DQ, but find it we did.

Armed with my book about what I can and cannot eat on my diet, I made some tough decisions about my dinner, but I stand by them. I had a grilled chicken sandwich, a side salad with fat-free Italian dressing, and a diet coke (although I'm a Diet Pepsi lovin' bear, most times.) This...was not the best meal I've had on my diet. The chicken was too dry, but at least it tasted good. The salad was bland, little more than some wilted lettuce, and the dressing was very, very strong flavored...and not in a good way. Oh well.

The Otter proclaimed his shrimp platter "about as good as could be expected for $6.00 shrimp", which damns the meal with faint praise indeed. The Other Half, however, enjoyed his flame-broiled burger, saying it was just like he remembered.

Finally, we all got the nostalgic item that had drawn us back in the first place...chocolate-dipped soft serve cones. Essentially, this is a cone of soft-serve ice cream - either chocolate, vanilla, or a twist of both. The cone is one of those "quispy" Styrofoam-like cones...edible, but unremarkable. What makes it enjoyable, however, is that the ice cream is then dipped into a sort of chocolate-flavored paraffin wax which sets immediately, forming a crunchy chocolate shell.

This is no Klondike bar, but it's tasty enough. And the amount of ice cream is plentiful, even for a small. It made the trip north from Conway pretty-much worth it, even if the rest of the food wasn't very good.

I chuckled at one point that we were passing numerous signs for homemade ice cream in favor of a Dairy Queen. But, let's face it...sometimes nostalgia is just the flavor you want.

- The Happy Bear

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