An It’s-It on the first day of spring

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ABOVE: A mint It’s-It at Pacific Standard in Brooklyn.

3/20/2010

PACIFIC STANDARD: 82 FOURTH AVENUE, BROOKLYN

Dusty piles of garbage blow through the streets just off of Atlantic and Flatbush in the heart of Brooklyn. It is the first day of spring, evidenced by all the pasty white skin seeing the light of day of the first time in months.

Inside a dark bar on 4th Ave. a handful of patrons watch college hoops and nurse craft beers. The hipster bartender, wearing a black  jumper and over-sized glasses – the kind my second grade teacher wore – slaps down a napkin and asks for my drink order.

But I’m not at Pacific Standard for the alcohol. The real treasure here is hidden deep in the freezer sitting just behind the bar.

“I heard you have It’s–Its, or is that just an urban legend?” I ask.

“We have mint,” she replies. My ears have never heard words sweeter than these.

She produces a frosty, plastic-wrapped ice cream sandwich, the likes of which can only be found at this single bar in New York and pretty much every convenience store, ice cream truck and concession stand in the San Francisco Bay Area.

They are the stuff of my childhood.

Created in San Francisco in 1928, the It’s-It has something of cult following. The idea of two oatmeal cookies, stuffed with ice cream and dipped in chocolate has been reproduced but nothing come close. Nothing.

I devour the dessert, leaving flecks of chocolate all over the bar and walk out, telling the bartender she made my week.

Spring is finally here, thank God.

–CP

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