i scream, you scream, we all scream for ice creme

"Today is the anniversary of the 1905 opening of Angelo Brocato's ice cream parlor. Brocato began a career of making ice cream in his native Palermo when he was twelve. He immigrated to New Orleans in the early 1900s, and set about realizing a dream: to open his own gelateria as fine as the ones he remembered in Sicily. He did that with a classic parlor on Ursulines Street in the French Quarter in 1905. The original Angelo Brocato's remained there until the 1980s, when it moved to North Carrollton Avenue just off Canal. By that time the business was in the third generation of the Brocato family, and had become the gold standard for its spumone, cannoli, cassata, lemon ice, cookies, and dozens of other confections. They were in the throes of celebrating their one hundredth anniversary when the storm came, flooded their parlor and factory deeply. Brocato's came back, though, picking up right where it left off, to the great delight of ice cream lovers." from tom fitzmorris

ed willard, the ass wipe, & i made a new orleans trip back in 1979 or so. it was an astonishing trip for various reasons(we saw the inimitable henry roeland byrd play his penultimate performance at tipitinas, for example)but mainly it was an eating trip based around ed's research & appetite. we ate at leruth's, warren leruth's incredible temple to great creole cooking. we ate at buster holmes, the great southern soul food restaurant. trust me, we ate & ate & ate. at least, ed did. i drank too. of course, that inhibited my appetite but not ed's. ed was eating a pre-breakfast snack, breakfast, mid-morning snack, lunch, mid-afternoon snack, & dinner every day. then, he headed for angelo brocato's, which was still on ursulines back then(they actually moved to a place on jackson square for a little while). i remember breaking away from the food regimen sometime early on our last day there & heading to the napolean house to drink. sometime later, i found ed walking ever so slowly, in the robert crumb "keep on trucking" poster pose. his hugely distended stomach was making him bend backwards to support it. his gait was determined tho a little unsteady. i think he'd have died if we'd stayed another day or two.

these folks have seen it all & made it through. if you have the chance, skip dessert at whatever restaurant you've eaten at & head on out to angelo's. everyone can walk through the front door these days.