Image by abdullahi bogdan

I Need You: Kids like Z enjoy Nutella-laced ice cream. Image by abdullahi bogdan

Many years ago, while I was working as a counselor at Beth Tfiloh day camp in the Baltimore suburbs, my favorite camper took a trip to Israel. She came back with the best present a 15-year-old counselor could ever ask for: a jar of chocolate spread.

At the time, I’d never encountered such a thing. And it changed my life. Suddenly chocolate peanut butter sandwiches were the stuff dreams were made of.

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Fast forward nearly two decades. We live in a world where chocolate and other nutty spreads are prevalent. Just yesterday the maker of Nutella made news by cancelling World Nutella Day!

At the same time, a minor travesty was unfolding in our neighborhood in brownstone Brooklyn. Ample Hills, Prospect Height’s newest and arguably most popular ice cream shop, announced that it is cutting down from 24 ice cream flavors to 16.

In doing so, they may get rid of Nanatella, a delicious organic banana ice cream rippled with — you guessed it — creamy Nutella.

Luckily, they’re letting customers vote for the flavors they want to keep. And two decades after my summers as a camp counselor, I have a vested interested in preserving Nanatella.

My beautiful, bright-eyed 13-month-old daughter (let’s just call her Z, for safety’s sake) is a huge banana fan. (I’m pretty sure she’s a huge chocolate fan too, but she got sick after eating too much chocolate covered matzo at Passover, so we’re going slow).

She loves walking down the street to Ample Hills and sneaking little tastes of our cups and cones. She loves playing with the children in the back of the shop.

And, if we work together, she can grow up loving Nanatella ice cream.

But we need your help! There’s still time. You can vote every 24 hours on each device till Thursday, May 23 at 10 p.m.! Please join our fight! Visit amplehills.com and vote for Nanatella.

That way all of Brooklyn’s children can grow up loving the same flavors I fell in love with at Beth Tfiloh.

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