Ice-cream is a serious business at 10 Below. Forget massive tubs of colored flavors peering out from deep fridges and the anticipation of cool creamy sweetness scooped into a crunchy cone. At this little nook in the East Village, the freezers are as flat as a crepe maker, the ice-cream is made in front of your eyes, and the experience is more like unemotional performance art. Except that you get to see a show, make friends in the waiting crowd, and score an ice-cream at the end of it.

Hoping for the salted caramel of the east village ice-cream world, my request for the most popular was met with ‘number 4’. Clarifying that this was better than the Vietnamese coffee with condensed milk, and receiving a response of ‘no’, I decided to go with Cookie Monster in deference to my friend John, who built puppets for the endearing show most of his life. It was a good choice. First there was the orchestral chopping of the unsuspecting oreo, then the swooping and slathering of the mixture as it started to freeze, the practiced sliding of the ice-cream into rolls, and the presentation of the final act topped with raspberries and blueberries. The performance made it all worthwhile – that’s why people pay $7 ( before tip and taxes ) for a ticket and the show is a sellout. Oh and yes, the ice-cream was delicious!