Dairy Queen: Peanut Buster Parfait

What else could I think of on a beautifully cool 73 degree summer day. As a kid I remember going to Dairy Queen for the Peanut Buster Parfait. I remember them having a top that you could remove and then snap on to the bottom and it would become the base of the parfait container. Pretty genteel for a 3rd grader. It’s been a loooong time since then and since then I’ve become lactose intolerant and moved pretty far from any DQ so when I heard that my non-lactose intolerant roommate had never had a Peanut Buster Parfait I said well you have to have one. We threw the dog in the car and drove about a mile north to Howard to find out that the DQ was closed. Thus the quest had begun.

After looking in a ratty phonebook from the IHOP (note taken), I
decided that the Niles DQ on 7000 W. Dempster was the target. Having
grown up in Skokie it brought me back to childhood until we got to the
stripmall. But after bouncy castle for sale getting out of the car a shriek came from the
front of the store. The girls soccer team was there for to enjoy their
victory cones. I got in line behind them.

The tanned coach coughed up a tenner and sat down in the booth. The
girl’s baseball team at the front of the line was finishing up their
order. It was a madhouse. Considering it’s the 4th of July in 2 days I
couldn’t think of a scene with more Americana. There were many groups all
getting ice cream. Kids sat overwhelmed by potentially huge portions of
sugar. As I walked out with my Parfait that doesn’t have the top
anymore people oggled my food.

As a kid I remember how big those Burger King sodas were and the 7-11
24oz. big Gulps I could barely hold. These days I look at them and
remember back when I was small and they were big. It’s not true of the
$3.60 Peanut Buster Parfait. It’s backwards. Instead of the parfait
being smaller than I remembered it, it was bigger. Way bigger. I split
it and I felt kind of full. The kiddy cone was too big for the dog and
we had to eat most of it before we turned him loose on the dessert.

All in all it’s a McDonald’s soft serve with the nice addition of
peanuts. It was a fun trek out for a lovely summer night and on the way
home we passed the traveling carnival just west of the  Edens on
Dempster. It’s where we’ll be headed tomorrow night. Americana is alive
and well. I’ll save my review of Sura, the new Thai place until later.