Frostys

I have had a long love of Wendy's chocolate frostys (not the vanilla ones- they aren't that good at all). For lunch at high school, sometimes we would go and get kids meals from the nearby Wendy's to eat back at school. I always thought that the best part is dipping the fries in the frosty. My Brandeis buddy Seth and I would frequent the Wendy's near the Brandeis campus where I would again get fries and a large frosty. But, I started going to Wendy's on a weekly basis during my last year in Boston (2006-2007) while I was tutoring/mentored youth in a program called Books and Basketball. I have to admit that Tuesday nights became my favorite nights of the week because I would get to see my sweet girl Esther Jackson. Esther was one of the sweetest, kindest people I have ever met.
Isn't she so beautiful! I was lucky enough to tutor Esther for 2 years and stay with her from her move from Cambridge to Dorchester. This is Esther with her Christmas gift of a deluxe makeup kit (I totally know what every 11 year old girl wants)

I felt so honored that I was lucky enough to be able to take her to the Cambridge Side Galleria the night of her birthday so that we could spend an evening together. I bought her some cute clothes that she picked out and some jewelry. We ate some Chinese food (her choice) and then went to CPK for some dessert (I was going to have the waiters sing but she made me promise not to).
This is probably my favorite photo of the two of us- just looking at it brings tears to my eyes because I really miss her. I had tried to keep in contact with her after I moved from Boston- talking with her once or twice- but then her phone number was changed and I lost contact with her. I hope that she is continuing to do well in school and is still the same, sweet girl who loves to laugh and dance
I know that this is a tangent from my original post but I can't eat a frosty now without thinking about her. After Books and Basketball, every week (except when they strangely closed the Wendy's for no reason) we would stop there with Astrid, another girl that I gave a ride to tutoring. We would get frostys and sometimes fries with them- and they always were looking for this "cute" worker Manny yet they were too embarrassed to ever talk to him
So so cute. What great memories are had of us talking and laughing at the table (we usually sat at this same one) as we ate our frostys.

Fast forward to this past month when I have been wanting a chocolaty frosty since I heard that Arby's had bought Wendy's. I had not seen any Wendy's near where we live so I got on Google maps (with its amazing business search tool) and found some of the nearest locations (about 15-20 minutes away). This past Friday, we were headed out to dinner and I asked if we could get a Frosty for dessert on the way home, since we were headed in that direction, and William was sweet enough :-) to say that it we could just go there for dinner. Unfortunately, since I had only thought of this while we were in the car, I only had a vague idea of where it was located. Again, another blessed Google product- Goog 411- saved the day. This is an AMAZING service that you can access for FREE on your phone and so it will give you the address/contact info of the nearest business in a specified area. And with this tools help, we found the Wendy's!! I enjoyed every bite of my LARGE chocolate frosty (since I don't get them very often, you just have to go for the largest size- and its ice cream even :-) and then dipped some fries in the frosty. I was such a happy woman- its amazing the power of ice cream with me. And it brought back such amazing memories of my times with Esther and Astrid- I am definitely going to try to get back in touch with her again because she was such a dear friend. I love the power of food not only to bring people together but can bring back memories of that as well.