Easy Ice Cream Sundae Dessert

Hundred and one degrees on Thursday. I know because Robert has a thermometer on the back porch that he checks like it owes him money, and he came inside and said, "Hundred and one," and I said, "I know. I live here too. I can feel it with my whole body." Savannah in late July is not a city, it is a sauna that someone built houses in. The air is so heavy it leans on you. The marsh smells like itself times ten — salt and mud and the particular funk of low tide that tourists wrinkle their noses at and that I breathe in like perfume because it is the smell of home and home does not apologize for how it smells.

Too hot for ambition. Too hot for three-hour greens. Too hot for the oven, for the stove, for standing. I sat in the kitchen with the fan on and the window open and I made shrimp salad. Cold shrimp — boiled that morning before the heat set in, with Old Bay and a bay leaf and a squeeze of lemon, pulled from the water when they curled and turned pink, chilled in the icebox. Chopped celery. A little red onion. Duke's mayo — and I am not going to have the mayonnaise conversation again, it is Duke's or it is wrong. Squeeze of lemon. Salt. Pepper. Served on saltines because bread is too much effort when the world is melting.

Denise ate hers at the kitchen table with a glass of ice water. Robert ate his on the porch because men have a different relationship with heat — they sit in it, they marinate in it, they claim they don't mind it. Dot Henderson minds the heat. Dot Henderson has always minded the heat. But Dot Henderson has also survived seventy Savannah summers and she will survive this one by eating cold shrimp and sitting in front of the fan and complaining, which is a form of coping that Hattie Pearl perfected and I inherited.

Kayla brought the babies by Saturday evening, after the worst of the sun passed. Michael ran through the sprinkler in the front yard. Pearl sat in a plastic tub of water and splashed with the focus of a scientist conducting experiments. Devon stood in the sprinkler fully clothed, which tells you everything about the week we've had. I watched from the porch with my shrimp salad and my sweet tea and my cane and my two titanium knees, and I thought: this is July. This has always been July. Hot and slow and wet and full of children screaming in water. The heat is terrible. The life inside it is not.

Now go on and feed somebody.

Earl passed in 2019 on Valentine’s Day. The small widow-life is in its small seventh year now. The small house in the small Thunderbolt-neighborhood of Savannah near the marsh continues to be the small Dorothy-residence. The small house is the small place Earl maintained and where Earl built the small raised-bed-garden. The small kitchen is the small heart of the small house.

The small thirty-five years at the small Hodge Elementary School cafeteria are the small career-spine of Dorothy’s life. The small lunch-lady role had been the small everyday-presence for the small generation of Savannah kids. The small retirement in 2020 had been the small adjustment-period after the small thirty-five-year-tenure. The small Sunday-spread-at-the-Thunderbolt-house for the small grandkids is the small post-retirement-rhythm.

The small First African Baptist Church congregation continues to be the small social-and-spiritual home. The small Wednesday-night-prayer-meeting. The small Sunday-morning-service. The small choir Dorothy has sung in for thirty-two years. The small church-cookouts where Dorothy’s small contributions are the small expected-presence.

Saturday evening, after Kayla brought the babies by and Devon stood fully clothed in the sprinkler and Pearl splashed in her plastic tub like a scientist with something to prove, I needed something that required nothing of me — no oven, no stove, no standing over anything hot. The shrimp salad had seen me through the week, but the children wanted something sweet, and sweet in July means cold, and cold means you open the icebox and you scoop and you let the little ones put on their own toppings and call it cooking. That is the whole secret. That is the recipe.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 0 minutes | Total Time: 10 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

1/2 gallon vanilla ice cream (or your preferred flavor)
1 cup hot fudge sauce, warmed slightly
1/2 cup caramel sauce
1 cup whipped cream (canned or freshly whipped)
1/2 cup chopped roasted peanuts or pecans
1/4 cup rainbow sprinkles
12 maraschino cherries, drained
1/2 cup crushed graham crackers or vanilla wafers (optional base layer)

Instructions

Lay the base. If using crushed graham crackers or vanilla wafers, spread them in an even layer across the bottom of a 9x13 inch dish or individual serving bowls.
Scoop the ice cream. Working quickly, scoop ice cream in generous portions over the base layer — roughly 2 to 3 scoops per person. For a family-style dish, pack scoops across the pan in a single layer. Return to the freezer for 5 minutes if the ice cream has softened.
Drizzle the sauces. Spoon warm hot fudge sauce evenly over the ice cream, followed by the caramel sauce. Work from the outside in so the sauces don’t pool in one spot.
Add the toppings. Dollop or pipe whipped cream over the top. Scatter chopped nuts and sprinkles across everything. Place a cherry on each scoop or serving portion.
Serve immediately. Bring it straight to the table — or the porch, or the yard, wherever the children have gathered — and let everybody dig in before the heat has its say about it.

Nutrition (per serving)

Easy Ice Cream Sundae Dessert — Something Cold for the Grandkids When Savannah Tries to Kill You