LIGHT TRAFFIC

Today I did something crazy. I left my house, walked to the Filipino corner store, and walked out with a thing of ice cream. Not just any ice cream. The kind I got was corn and cheese ice cream. Yes. Filipino corn and cheese ice cream. And I didn’t even look scared.

I put the the container down by the cash, pushed my shades up into my hair and smiled at the owner, a sweet man in his 30s with the face of someone who has a bunch of loud kids at home.

“So, is corn and cheese big in the Philippines, ice-cream flavour-wise” I said.

Two newly pubescent boys who were being handed tamarin slushes and fried fishballs turned around mid-grab and stared.

“Oh yes!” the owner said. On the counter behind him, his daughter wearing pea-green leggings and sitting very close to a flat screen computer monitor, started to scream. “It’s everywhere. You can order everywhere. Same for all the flavours I have here,” he said gesturing toward the freezer. “Black bean… taro-coconut… avocado.”

“So what’s it like,” I said.

“Its like ice cream.” he said, earnestly. “But maybe a bit sweeter.”

Back at home, I called my brother and told him I needed a favour. “You are coming over here and eating corn and cheese ice cream with me,” I said. He is my little brother, so he paused the movie he was watching and crossed the street to my house.

As I fussed to find matching bowls and spoons (it felt an occasion, kind of), my brother read me the ingredients, emphasizing certain passages for effect.

“Corn syrup… cream corn… natural cheddar cheese.. whole corn…”

I scooped out two servings. The beast was the same colour as mango lassi. We could see things in it, bobbing below the surface. We could only imagine what those things were. Looking each other in the eye, we ventured a bite.

Paul was the first to speak: “You know what, Carolyne, I like corn!” he said.

In our mouths, frozen corn kernels and cheese shreds assaulted out taste buds in all sorts of new ways. It kind of tasted like a frozen cream of corn smoothie that you would’ve accidentally dropped a ton of sugar, cream and cheddar cheese in. Except it was good. Deliriously good.

‘Is it me or it tastes like buttered popcorn,” I said. “I don’t know,” my brother said, going for more.

“Major party happening in my mouth right now,” he said. ” You know what – it’s the chunks. It’s all about the chunks. Like Häagen Dazs chunks. Except this time it’s not double brownie fudge – it’s corn, and grated cheese.”

I looked up and noticed we’d both plowed through our scoops in no time.

“It tastes like kettle corn,” I said, licking my spoon. “Frozen, creamy kettle corn.” The texture was perfect. The taste brought mind dizzyingly sweet and onctuous versions of things like polenta, Southern cornbread and corn soup. If you can imagine that. Except it was ice cream. And there was cheese involved.

“This stuff’s the popcorn Jellybean of ice cream,” my brother said.

“I think I’ll have some more.”