I don't know much about it. For some reason there doesn't seem to be a website (even when those are now so ubiquitous we shouldn't be surprised to find a website for the lemonade stand the neighbor's kid set up last July). I do know that the makers of Capogiro gelato are in Philadelphia and I believe it's a pretty small family business.

The fact that I'm writing about this food product should surprise me even more than it does my regular readers. I'm not even much of an ice cream fan; a pint has been know to for languish weeks in our freezer compartment, and I rarely think of going for a cone or a cup when I'm outside, even on the hottest summer day.

I do like to cook, but I have no patience for putting together a sweet when I'm doing savory stuff. Instead, if I'm planning a meal for friends, I usually go looking for some kind of simple, cool palate-cleansing finish, and that's what started this rave.

Months ago I first came across Capogiro in our local Garden of Eden food market. The container had almost no identifying markings, and certainly nothing about calories, vitamins or dates of manufacture. Of course I was really intrigued, so I bought one. I even imagined that perhaps some local slow-food entrepreneur working out of an apartment kitchen might have placed the product in that freezer cabinet surrepticiously in order to create a market and a demand. When I tasted it at home and I realized how good it was, that story actually sounded even less preposterous.

I have never, ever before tasted any frozen dessert as wonderful as this one, at least on this side of the Tyrrhenian Sea. I hesitated to write about it for fear that my almost-secret supply might dry up, but I also thought that the best way to ensure its availability might be to do some word-of-blog marketing.

If the recommendation of someone who has just admitted he's severely challenged as an ice cream fanatic isn't enough to whet your appetite, let me tell you about just a few of the incredibly inventive flavors Capogiro has made available to its fortunate acolytes (meaning especially the people of Philadelphia). Here's a short sample courtesy of Philadelphia Weekly:

How about prune armagnac, full of prunes swollen with fine French brandy? Or Mexican chocolate, powerfully flavored with canella (pungent Mexican cinnamon), bitter almonds and dried ancho chilies that make the back of the throat tingle. The La Colombe cappuccino is as frothily delicious as its namesake. Blood orange sorbetto tastes as though it were just picked from a tree, while cactus pear sorbetto, a shockingly pink confection, somehow manages to replicate the exact taste sensation of eating a cactus pear, minus the gritty seeds. Flavors change almost daily, depending on what's seasonally appropriate.