Becoming Cinnamon Caramel

How my critical take on the Museum of Ice Cream melted away

Cate, a/k/a Cinnamon Caramel, in the Sprinkle Pool at Museum of Ice Cream Boston. Photo Carmen Morrell.

Last Monday, a man named Cookies and Cream ushered me into the new Museum of Ice Cream in the Seaport District, which had not yet opened.

When I visit a museum for the Globe, I let the marketing department know I’m coming, and someone meets me at the door. But here was Cookies and Cream instead. He didn’t seem to care that I identified myself as a reporter with an appointment. Instead, he led me through a dance about a banana split.

“Peel, peel, peel the banana,” he chanted, arms moving up and down.

I went to a Revolutionary War encampment for a feature I wrote years ago about historic re-enactors, and walked around introducing myself as a reporter from the Globe, asking people their names and why they had come. Many refused to step out of character. They acted friendly but baffled: Why was a young lady doing a man’s job, asking questions for a gazette on a battlefield? I’d stepped into another world that didn’t accept my reality. If I hadn’t been working, I might have been bemused. But I was pissed. Was it happening again at the Museum of Ice Cream? I grit my teeth.