It's time for Corrugated Fun!

[ornoth_cycling]

Allow me to introduce you to one of the most sublime delights of life. I call it “Corrugated Fun”.

What is it? It’s a frappe, or a “milkshake” if you are one of those benighted people who don’t have enough vocabulary to differentiate between an ice cream drink and flavored milk.

When you say “frappe”, most people think vanilla, chocolate, and maybe strawberry. This shows, as Captain Spock would point out, “two-dimensional thinking”. What stops you from ordering a frappe made with a more interesting flavor of ice cream? If you’re Ornoth, the correct answer is, of course, nothing.

So here’s the secret recipe. Corrugated Fun is a frappe made with chocolate chip ice cream (and vanilla syrup). When properly made, the chocolate chips are suspended in a thick, slurpable vanilla ice cream medium, such that one has to chew up choco-bits after every sip.

And when you finish the drink, the bottom of your cup is lined with still more bits of chocolate, looking for all the world like savory semi-sweet coffee grounds. That’s the “corrugated” part.

The “fun” part is that the thing is stupidly delicious. It’s like a chocolate-laced double shot of vanilla sweetness, and it goes down just right on a hot summer day. I encourage you to give it a try.

The history of Corrugated Fun goes back to my childhood, and one of my first lengthy bike rides, although it wasn’t even 10 miles round trip. I couldn’t have been very far into my teens when I rode with a friend or two down Sewall Street into Hallowell, then onto busy Route 201 to Webber’s ice cream stand in Farmingdale. I dunno what came over me, but it was pure inspired genius: a frappe with chocolate chip ice cream. A lifetime commitment was born.

Since then, I’ve always judged an ice cream stand by the Corrugated Fun it can produce. I usually frequent Kimball’s in Carlisle, which is right there on 225—one of the roads I bike most often—but it’s always nice to see what other shops can serve up.

For me, Corrugated Fun is as much a part of summer as riding a bike, and they’re best when combined. Well, except… just remember to give the ice cream a chance to settle before you get back onto the bike, mmkay?