I have a friend whose most vividChristmas memory centers on a bowl of peppermint ice cream. It was nothing fancy-unlike say, the white-chocolate-and-peppermint-bark version Haeagen-Dazs brings out this time of year. Just the plain old Kroger grocery-store brand, the stuff available only during the holidays and billed rather grandlyas a "limited edition." Clearly, his may not have been the happiest of childhoods (into his adolescence, the bowl was accompanied by a shot of Wild Turkey poured by his grandfather), but I get it. It's all about the anticipation and the symbolism. When the ice cream hits the dairy case, good times are ahead; when it departs, they're over. "Peppermint and the holidays is this almost sacred combo," says Joel Don-dis, owner of Sucre, a sweets emporium in New Orleans thatsells peppermint drinking chocolate and marshmallows, candy-cane macaroons, and peppermint white-chocolate truffles. "Every year we sell out."
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