The Food Of The Gods

God, I miss the beach.

Over in All Access today my pal Perry Simon linked to this Asbury Park Press story about Kohr Brothers Frozen Custard.

There is nothing on this planet that quite touches frozen custard. The Food of the Gods. Sorta like soft ice cream, but richer, creamier, egg-ier. Some people get their nostalgia rush from smells; I get mine from tastes. The flavor-memory of Kohr’s takes me to the summer of ’91 when I was the morning DJ at WMGM in Atlantic City, living in the basement of a friend’s house in nearby Ocean City, NJ. The place had a ceiling so low you had to stoop when you walked through the door, lest you hit your head on the pipes.

Air conditioning? Fuhgeddaboutit. Fortunately, we were a block from the ocean; the best available remedy for the heat was an afternoon stroll on the boards. Ah, the boardwalk: the steady white noise of the surf; the salty breeze with the occasional refreshing cool blast off the ocean; the scavenging seagulls that seemed to just get bolder as the season progressed; the smell of wet sand mixed with suntan lotion, and the mandatory stop at Kohr’s for a large custard cone topped with rainbow or chocolate jimmies (“sprinkles” for the uninitiated)...

...couldn’t beat it with a stick.

(It also tends to go through you like grease through a goose; that’s why the stop at Kohr’s was something you generally did on the way back to the house. Too much info?).

In certain parts of the country, frozen custard is a staple. It’s hard to imagine summer without it, not just at the Jersey shore, but places like St. Louis (Ted Drewes, anyone?).

Other places have never heard of it – like where I live now.

(We do have Dairy Queen, and Cold Stone Creamery, with ice-cream cones as big as your head that cost about as much as a thankful of gas. Not bad, mind you, but not the same.)

Perry, who lives in Malibu, has suggested someone open a custard stand near his home. I think he’s on to something. How about this: a stand that hawks all the stuff guys like Perry and I grew up on back East: frozen custard, Taylor Pork Roll, beach fries, scrapple and Tastykake Peanut Butter Kandy Kakes.

Call it Big Jim’s House Of Cholesterol.

I don’t know how it would play in Malibu, but here in North Dakota, they’d love it…