August 2, 2021 Issue

Three excellent pieces in this week’s issue:

1. Hannah Goldfield’s “Tables For Two: We All Scream for Ice Cream,” a review of several blissful new ice creams, including Sea Salt Saba (“Trapani sea-salt base with a swirl of intensely concentrated grape-must syrup”), Red Flag (“sweet cream with strawberry jam and graham crunch”), and Roasted Banana with Coffee Caramel (“surging with dark reduced sugars”). Pleasure is palpable in every paragraph. Sample: 

There are pints to take home, too; availing myself of an insulated bag outfitted with ice packs ($7), I toted several on the subway, including Panna Stracciatella, flecked with dark-chocolate shards, and Somebody Scoop Phil, the brainchild of the sitcom producer turned food personality Phil Rosenthal, featuring a lightly salted malted milk-chocolate base, dense with chunks of Twix and candied peanuts, plus swirls of fudge and panna caramel that oozed obscenely when I peeled off the lid.

2. Nick Paumgarten’s Talk story “Lemonland,” an account of his visit to an intriguing Manhattan installation called Citrovia, created to disguise a giant construction shed. Paumgarten describes it as a “plasticine sanctuary of tangerine lemons and Teletubby trees, a contrived oasis where the lemons are yellow and the sky is always blue.” The air at Citrovia is scented with a custom-made fragrance. Paumgarten delightfully describes it:

It brought to mind the old seventies perfume Love’s Fresh Lemon, from Love Cosmetics (“The subtle way to get fresh with him”), the jangly tang of Mello Yello (“There’s nothing mellow about it”), and smoke-concealment strategies of yore.

3. Ann Patchett’s “Flight Plan,” a personal history piece on learning to live with her flight-obsessed husband. The opening sentence hooked me: “The three of us were in a 1957 de Havilland Beaver, floating in the middle of a crater lake in the southwest quadrant of Alaska.” The piece brims with arresting lines. This one, for example: “The only thing on hand to throw up in were the pilot’s waders, which seemed better (better?) than throwing up on the stamped-metal floor.” And this 138-word beauty:

Considering that about half of all small-craft accidents occur during either takeoff or landing; considering that taking off and landing was all we were doing; considering that the plane was rusted and the pilot had struggled with the aftereffects of Agent Orange and my boyfriend had never landed a plane on water before; considering that this lake was somewhere far from Iliamna and no one knew we were there in the first place; considering that if the plane flipped, as it had been established these planes could do, I would probably not be able to swim through the freezing water in my sack of neoprene (which I had stupidly worn against the cold), and that, if I did make it to the shore, my chances of surviving whatever came next were probably zero—I should have been afraid.

And this: “I saw the headlights against the garage door and went outside in the rain to meet him with my love and my rage and my sick relief.”

That last one is inspired! The whole piece is inspired! I enjoyed it immensely.