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Our Dearest Fountaineers,
What a thrill it is to see new life revive our surroundings! Fresh breath and light restore beings burrowed in slumber, and we wake along with them to present you with a wide assortment of new sweets! Banana Ice Cream has returned to our menu, and those who have acquainted themselves with its creamy luxuriousness have long been anticipating its re-introduction. The flavor is immersed with puréed bananas and incorporates our farm fresh dairy, its taste is exquisite. Another ice cream flavor that will be making its debut is “Chocolate Peanut Butter Swirl”, a hardy flavor comprised of midnight cocoa powder and a homemade peanut butter sauce whirled throughout the ice cream in hardened sweeps of granulated peanuts. For those who favor the salty and the dark, this flavor may speak more adequately to your tastes. Another flavor to be launched will be our “Honeycomb Ice Cream”, its base is steeped with a honey essence which drones with a hiveful of flavor and sweetness. Throughout the ice cream, homemade honeycomb candy is crunchily studded. We will be featuring this flavor in our “Land of Milk and Honey” Ice Cream Soda, a delicious drink made with Levi’s Vanilla Cream Soda, fresh milk from Longacre’s dairy farm. This blissful beverage will anoint your tastebuds with richness and pleasure.
Eastertime is also right around the corner, so close that we can practically hear the padded paws of our vested rabbit friend thumping the city’s cobblestone. We will be decorating our store in pastels, and the Shane Confectionery display window will house a ceramic menagerie of associated hares carrying their chocolate-filled Easter baskets. Additionally, we will be making Shane’s world famous buttercream candies, this season in four exciting varieties! These include dark chocolate covered coconut cream, milk chocolate covered peanut butter cream, dark chocolate chocolate-vanilla buttercreams, and milk chocolate chocolate butter cream. The buttercream fondant is cooked on machinery dating back to the 1920s, and is composed of sugar cooked slowly while churned in water, vanilla extract, rich butter, some maize treacle, chocolate liquor, and vanilla extract. For three generations, Shane customers have lined the block to purchase these treats. We encourage you to purchase these wonders to keep with a sweet Philadelphia tradition.
It is impossible to transition from reportage of glad tidings to reportage of deep and personal loss without calling attention to the tonal shift. While our business persists on maintaining the mindset of living in the past, there are certain events that take place in our present times which we cannot ignore. The earthquake, tsunami, and ensuing chaos that have devastated Japan and its isles call for immediate and substantial action and relief. It is difficult to comprehend the full scale of the catastrophe, but, regardless, we feel obliged to assist those suffering in whatever way that we are able to. We have decided to donate 100% of the proceeds of our “Japanese Thirst-Ade” to the Japan America Society of Greater Philadelphia's Disaster Relief Fund. Our thoughts and prayers go out to those in need, to the afflicted and the rescue workers and caretakers. While the damage is expected by any measure to be longstanding and difficult, we hope and pray for the speediest possibly recovery.
We speak soberly now and with heavy hearts to report the unfortunate passing of Dan Nitz, a former employee of ours, who had worked as a soda jerk during the very first summer of our operation in 2005. Born on January the 25th of 1987, Dan was an artistic individual whose life was steeped in poetry, he held a unique outlook on life, and is said by former staff to have always had a “light in his eyes”. In 2005 Dan was diagnosed with acute Leukemia, and throughout five trying years he fought to bring beauty into the world with his artwork and deeds. To the misfortune of all, the disease progressed and took his life this past February. He is now in the company of eternal light. We ask that you please donate to The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. You can learn more about Dan at www.DanNitz.com
It is with regret that we close our monthly correspondence with such sadness, but we ask that you please honor the memory of those who left us too soon with deeds of loving kindness and affection. May we all be reminded of life’s fragility, but also, its continuation. The revival of life in this Spring season seems emptier with these losses. But by affirming the singularities of life within ourselves through kind and brave action, we affirm also the continuum of life and its preciousness.That Life and Love may always last,
The Franklin Fountain.
