Eating while reporting can be a tricky thing. A few years ago, I did a story on the triumphant arrival of Indian mangoes on American shores. The Indian distributor, a dentist by day, brought a case of mangoes up to our newsroom and prodded me to enjoy one during our interview.

For this particular type of mango, a Kesar, one didn’t simply peel and chop the fruit into little manageable pieces, but actually massaged the unpeeled fruit with both hands, for a good 5 minutes, until all the delicious mango nectar within had been liberated from its fibrous bonds. The next step was to cut a tiny hole in the end of the mango, and start sucking. There I sat, with one hand holding the microphone up to the face of the distributor-dentist, the other hand jamming the mango up against my mouth as if it were a sippy cup. I simply could not stop sucking the juice out of that fruit — it was that delicious — and I had to continually apologize to my interviewee. Such egregiously unprofessional behavior!

Yesterday, I was out on Staten Island, doing some reporting on the attacks on Latinos that have been taking place. I was struggling to get local residents to talk on the record, and given the time of day, the laborers who have been directly hit by the attacks were off working and not available to talk. After wandering up and down Port Richmond Avenue for a while, an activist with Make the Road New York suggested I hit Ralph’s Famous Italian Ices, nearby.

“It’s really good,” she said, “and there’s always people lined up who might speak to you.”

Just as she said, there was a steady stream of people outside, waiting to buy an ice or ice cream, and I realized I’d stumbled upon a major neighborhood institution. To get a sense of the intense devotion felt by patrons of Ralphs, note this online paean:

BEST ICES IN THE WORLD NOBODY CAN COMPETE ALLT HSOE STUPID JERSEY FREAKS CAN STOP SAYING RITAS IS THE BEST ONCE THEY TASTE THIS STUFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!‎

That same competitive spirit could be felt among the customers in the parking lot, if not quite as graphically. After getting my reporting out of the way — no multi-tasking, a la mango episode — I went up to the counter and made my choice.

The watermelon ice sounded spectacular, just perfect for a hot day.

“Want a sample?” the nice ice lady asked, then handed over a spoonful of pink.

I downed it, and tasted notes of… bubblegum.

This wasn’t anything like I’d expected. I was instantly transported to the softball fields of my youth, when those of us in the stands or behind home plate hoped to catch a foul ball and redeem it for a bright, multi-colored snow cone. Those snow cones tasted great — to an eight year old. What were adults doing consuming this synthetic, syrupy stuff — and at the height of watermelon season?

Undeterred, I ordered a cup with two flavors: chocolate and cherry, and walked away from Ralphs so that I could properly meditate upon my ice. The chocolate, as it turned out, was okay — certainly better than the watermelon, but really, nothing to crow about. The cherry, however, was almost as bad as the watermelon, and even worse, it contained little bits of cherry: not fresh cherry, but candied cherry (maraschino?), the kind I was really into when I was really into snow cones.

I kept downing spoonfuls of ice, in hopes that my taste buds would discover the key to this fabled Italian ice, but sadly, it never happened. All I got was a mild tummy ache.