Pistachio Ice Cream with Roasted Strawberry Swirl

Maggie’s Ice Cream is a quaint-looking but always-hopping ice cream shop on the main strip in downtown Hyannis, Cape Cod. Well, it was. It was briefly named Laura’s and has been called Katie’s since 2002. But it will always be Maggie’s to me; no after-dinner stroll on a Cape weekend was complete without a scoop or cone from the house-like shop, with its white tables and expansive front porch. Maggie’s probably didn’t have the best ice cream, but it was homemade and satisfying after a day full of sand and sun. [ed note: Massachusetts, and specifically Boston and The Cape, is known as the unofficial ice cream capital of the US. How lucky am I?] The young teens, who at the time, seemed like adults, were always kind and patient, even though I rarely made a decision by the time it was my turn to order.

My dad was easy, and he’d rarely step foot into the shop: He always got pistachio, a departure from the coffee or mocha flavors he ordered everywhere else. It was “real” pistachio—dubbed that only because it wasn’t radioactive green, but, instead, a milky beige. I thought pistachio seemed so adult and sophisticated, European even, so I happily stole bites from my dad’s cup. I was a mini elitist: I knew never to touch green pistachio ice cream. My parents taught me the important stuff.

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