IN THE PINK

IN THE PINK

Several weeks ago, I was in Fort Atkinson. I was at the stop sign directly across the street from the Frostie Freeze.
All last fall and winter, the only activity going on was the selling of Christmas trees in their parking lot.
Today was different. It was spring and they were open for business. "Good deal," I thought. I like a little ice cream treat as I am driving home. It wasn’t to be that day. It looked like all the kids in town and their families had the same idea.
The cars were lined up at the drive-up around the corner and down the block. Kids and grown-ups were three and four deep at the windows.
The tables were full, and people were leaning against their cars. I figured it must have been a convention or something. I would have to wait another day for my first Frostie Freeze of
the season.
There was no Frostie Freeze years ago. When we were "summer people" and the kids were growing up, we would head south on Sunday nights and through Fort so we could stop at Kent’s. He made his own ice cream. Real ice cream. It was delicious. But he was a curmudgeon. We used to say he tried not to smile. I think deep down he had a good heart. He sure had good ice cream. But no smiles.
Today it’s Frostie Freeze- alive and well and selling soft-serve. There is a little sign that sits atop the big sign that says-Since 1983. The building is white. Everything else is pink. And I mean PINK. Everything from the signs, to the picnic tables, the menus, and even the florescent light bulbs.
The shirts and hats are the same shade of pink. Sometimes even the soft serve of the day is pink. Not an ordinary pink. I think years ago we called it hot pink. Whatever, it is a great color. A happy color.
That’s not the best thing, though. If you go up to the window, you can smell the cleaner. And if you peek inside, everything you see is spotlessly clean.
Pink. Spotless. Soft serve. That isn’t even the best thing. It’s the people.
I don’t have an agenda. I don’t even know anyone’s name there. I just know the owner is enthusiastic, friendly and smiling. He either trains his staff to be the same way, or gives them smiling lessons before they start working.
Nowadays I go through the drive-up window. I always get the same thing- a small cone.
It’s a buck. It lasts for nine miles down highway 12 to A. It’s my treat to myself and no one has to know.
It doesn’t matter what I feel like when I pull up to the window.. I leave with more than a soft serve for a buck. I leave with a smile on my face. It lasts longer than the cone.
Now I have confessed why sometimes I am not hungry when I get home and dinner is late.
If I do a crock pot meal in the morning, it will be ready anytime. I haven’t done any slow cooking for a long time. I got a new crock pot recently. This is one of the recipes from the new
Taste of Home magazine. I made it. It is good.
Curried Chicken with Peaches
:
you will need
one chicken, cut up (I take the skin off)
salt and pepper to taste
1 29 oz can sliced peaches
½ cup chicken broth
1 T melted butter
1 T minced onion
2 t curry powder (I used one)
2 minced garlic cloves
1/4 t ground ginger
3 T corn starch
3 T water
1/4 cup raisins (I used dried cranberries)
Place chicken in show cooker
salt and pepper
Drain peaches, reserving ½ cup juice
In small bowl, combine the rest of the ingredients (except the cornstarch, water, peaches and raisins)
pour over chicken
Cook for 3-4 hours on low, or two hours on high
Remove chicken
Add cornstarch and water
Cook on high until thickened
Stir in peaches and raisins
Put chicken back in pot
serve over rice
Enjoy