Bryan Petroff - Big gay ice cream : saucy stories & frozen treats: going all the way with ice cream

Copyright 2015 by Bryan Petroff and Douglas Quint
Illustrations copyright 2015 by Jason OMalley

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Clarkson Potter/Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

www.crownpublishing.com
www.clarksonpotter.com

CLARKSON POTTER is a trademark and POTTER with colophon is a registered trademark of Random House LLC.

Big Gay Ice Cream, Big Gay Ice Cream Truck, Monday Sundae, Salty Pimp, Choinkwich, American Globs, Gobbler, Mermaid, cone logo, mug logo, and unicorn logo are all trademarks of Big Gay Inc.

Recipe , from the Treats Truck Baking Book by Kim Ima. Copyright 2011 by Kim Ima. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.

Recipe , from The Truck Food Cookbook . Copyright 2012 by John T. Edge. Used by permission of Workman Publishing Co., Inc, New York. All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Petroff, Bryan.
Big gay ice cream / Bryan Petroff and Douglas Quint; with Rebecca Marx Flint ; foreword by Anthony Bourdain ; photographs by Donny Tsang.First edition.
pages cm
Includes index.
1. Ice cream, ices, etc. I. Quint, Douglas. II. Title.
TX795.P486 2015
641.862dc23
2014022856

ISBN 978-0-385-34560-6
Ebook ISBN 978-0-385-34561-3

Book illustrations by Jason OMalley
Cover design by Jess Morphew
Photographs by Donny Tsang

v3.1

For our mothers, Mary and Patricia.

Clearly they deserve most of the blame (our therapists want us to change that to credit) for this whole saga.

For our Big Gay Godmother, Mindy Novack, who fought for us every step of the way.

A MESSAGE FROM THE HEADMASTER

Oct. 19, 1987

This is to inform the student body that Douglas Quint has been suspended from the Bassoon Ensemble, effective immediately. He shall also no longer be welcome at band practice, Glee Club, school athletic events, or public gatherings of any kind while in possession of his instrument. It is the feeling of the faculty that his presence has proven, again and again, to be disruptive. The bassoon, as we have stressed to young Mr. Quint many times, is a powerful tool and its strange and terrible powers (not unlike nuclear energy) are to be used for Good--not Evil.

Sadly, I must also announce the expulsion of another student, Bryan Petroff, for the unauthorized sale of what are apparently homemade ice cream and dairy products from the trunk of his car during school hours. As has been explained to Bryan, there are rules governing the sale and distribution of foodstuffs--and from all evidence available, his business is in violation of nearly all of them.

Clearly the widespread abuse of sugary frozen treats with ironic names like The Bea Arthur and The Salty [procurer] is not in the best interests of an institution of learning and its student body--no matter how delicious or whimsical. While I am myself a longtime admirer of the oeuvre of fashion icon Ms. Bea Arthur, particularly her work on the classic television series Maude, I doubt very much whether she would want herself remembered as a soft-serve ice cream cone sold out of the trunk of a battered El Camino with a unicorn mural on its doors.

Speaking of said vehicle:

Mr. Frebesher, of the English Department, points out that the term Big Gay Ice Cream Truck, the name emblazoned rather gaudily on its hood under a frolicking unicorn, is perhaps a misnomer. Is the El Camino actually a truck, per se? Or is it more of a half-truck/half-coupe? Also, when we say big gay ice cream truck, is it the ice cream or the truck itself to which we are attributing gay qualities? Are Messrs. Quint and Petroff implying that there is something gay about eating ice cream--a delicious summer treat, which all of us, heterosexual or not, enjoy regardless of our personal lifestyle choices? The wording is ambiguous.

In other campus news, the Fighting Unicorns face off against the Springfield Ferrets on Chiswick Field this Friday night. Due to popular demand, Beef Noodle Casserole has been added to the menu, Chicken Hawaiian having been removed.

A reminder--and there are no exceptions--that jackets and ties are still required on Wednesdays for assembly and that gentlemens hair must still reach no further than collar or earlobe. Hiding your actual locks under a Dynel pixie-cut wig is not an acceptable option.

Skirting, evading, or violating the rules is no way to get ahead.

As a postscript, let me suggest that any students approached by either Mr. Quint or Mr. Petroff with an offer to contribute to their purported book resist the urge and immediately report the incident to me.

This project is clearly doomed.

Veritas Fortissima!

Monsignor Anthony Bourdain
Headmaster

ORIENTATION

Honey, I bought a big gay ice cream truck!

In the Beginning

We never decided to have a business togetherit just happened. In 2009, we were sitting at home. Like any modern couple, we were farting around on our laptops on opposite ends of the sofa, when Doug noticed that his friend Andrea Fisher had posted on Facebook, looking for ice cream truck drivers.

Doug and Andrea had met at Juilliard, where he was studying the bassoon and she the flute. Doug had always been jealous of Andrea because she had the balls to do stuff like spend her summers in Japan, where she earned cash as a stripper. The last time Doug was in Japan, he visited a coed pool with a therapeutic electrical current running through it. Although it was clothing optional, his local translator informed him hed need to keep a washcloth over his naughty bits because, well, he might scare the locals. Dreams of a nudity-based Asian income stream came crumbling down.

Andrea had been driving an ice cream truck for a few years, and the New York Times had written a story about her. So when Doug saw Andreas post, he decided to sign up. As a concert bassoonist working on his doctorate at The CUNY Graduate Center, he spent winters commuting to Boston to play and summers in New York making reeds and praying for work. He was tired of commuting and thought it would be fun to make money instead of living on ramen. Also, he wanted to spend more time with Bryan. We had only moved in together about six months prior. Our first date (and first time meeting face-to-face) was at a Barnes & Noble to hear Charlotte Rae, Mrs. Garrett on The Facts of Life , sing songs from an album ( Songs I Taught My Mother ) that she had recorded decades earlier and was seeing a new release. Olympia Dukakis was also there (Would you call this cullah grape or aubergine?), and we took that as a good sign. Sign of what, exactly, we didnt know.