Do you remember the first time you had a root beer float? I do. I must have been around 7 years old and we were visiting my grandparents in Phoenix, in the summer. Have you ever been to Arizona in the summer? Must be why I find Sacramento so tolerable. Let’s just say it’s hot. I still remember all of us greedy kids, still in our swim suits, having been cooling off in the pool all day, lined up in the kitchen, wide eyed as we watched my father scoop ice cream into tall glasses, and then slowly pour root beer over them. The concoction would start to foam up and sometimes spill over (of course we would lick the sides of the glass when that happened). The foam would eventually recede a bit and we would get another dose of root beer to top us off. Then we would poke at the ice cream with our straws until it dislodged from the sides of the glass and floated to the surface. Sometimes he added the scoops of ice cream to our root beers. But usually it was ice cream first, because then you could control the foam up more carefully. If you just add a scoop of ice cream to root beer, better be ready to catch all the foam as it comes erupting over the sides.

Continue reading "Root Beer Float" »