fearthereaper

Ah, the Ocean State. Rhode Island is a pretty weird place. I've spent a lot of time there, working, sailing, caring for the father of an old girlfriend who had a bad stroke, going to PawSox games. I hope you find some holiday cheer amid the grey, steely New England winter landscape and you father in laws decline.

For the ice cream minded, here is a bit of Rhode Island knowledge you won't get everywhere. In L.A., when you want a milk shake you order, oddly enough, a milk shake. That order, and what arrived as a cause of it, would be the same in just about everyplace in the U.S., with two exceptions, parts of Massachusetts, where a milk shake is a frappe (silent e) or Rhode Island, where you would ask for a cabinet if you wanted, well, a milk shake. Of course the day is long gone when ordering a milk shake in Cranston would elicit a befuddled look on the face of the soda jerk as all Rohde Island ice cream scoopers are tri-lingual and understand the Massholes, the locals and everyone else. The trick is if you order a cabinet in high summer at a busy beachside place (Newport no longer works, alas, they are forgetting the old ways) the jerk will take a quick look at you (just look back, don't nod or say a thing), make you your cabinet and charge you a good deal less than if you ordered it as anything else. I shit you not (a favorite New England saying). The only ways this can go a bit wrong are if the jerk doesn't buy that you are of the fold, he could say "with or without?" to which the only appropriate reply would be "what, do I look Canadian? without", or the jerk is too young and is one of the many who have forgotten our old local names for stuff.

Best wishes.

Happy Holidays!