As millions of Americans try to cool down during the record summer heat, a Maryland-based food manufacturer is recalling multiple brands of ice cream products sold nationwide that may have been contaminated with listeria, a potentially fatal bacteria.

The list of more than 60 affected products made by Totally Cool Inc. of Owings Mills, Md., includes brands such as Hershey’s, Friendly’s, Chipwich and Jeni’s. Pints of ice cream and sorbet, as well as ice cream cakes, sandwiches, cones and more are potentially tainted.

The Food and Drug Administration said there have been no reported illnesses so far.

Totally Cool halted production and distribution of the products after FDA sampling detected the presence of listeria, the agency said.

The company is investigating the presence of listeria and taking “preventative actions,” the FDA added, and no other Totally Cool products are included in the recall.

Totally Cool did not immediately respond to NPR’s request for comment.

Consumers who bought any of the recalled ice cream products are being urged to return the items for a full refund. Affected products can be identified using the date and plant codes printed on the product labels.

Chipwich said in a statement on its website that its parent company, Crave Better Foods LLC, “maintains and operates a small, separate production line” at the same Maryland facility as Totally Cool.

Chipwich called the recall “unfortunate” and said it was “taken out of an abundance of caution and care for the product and its loyal fans.”

Hershey’s Ice Cream said it has stopped sales of potentially impacted products following the recall from its manufacturing partner, Totally Cool. Hershey’s also asked consumers and dealers to throw away any possibly contaminated items they already had on hand.

The FDA says Listeria monocytogenes can lead to serious and occasionally fatal infections in young children, elderly people and anyone with a weakened immune system. Pregnant people infected with listeria can also suffer miscarriages or stillbirths.

Healthy people who eat food contaminated with the bacteria may experience a milder illness with symptoms including high fever, severe headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain and diarrhea, the agency said.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 1,600 people are infected with listeriosis each year, and an estimated 260 of them die.

About a year and a half ago, it occurred to me that if I didn’t start working out again, I’d be sliding into a sloppy, flabby late middle age.

I had always been a runner. For more than 30 years, my workout partner and I ran regularly along the oceanfront, from Venice to Santa Monica. Rain or shine, through pregnancies, child-rearing, PTAs, marital conflict and all the things that Zorba the Greek once described as “the full catastrophe,” we talked as we ran, becoming each other’s best therapist.

And then, sometime before the COVID-19 pandemic, my partner discovered a hot new form of exercise. Our running life as we knew it was basically over as I effectively became a pickleball widow.

In 2020, when the pandemic forced us inside, I pretty much stopped running.

Around the same time, my left knee began to ache and swell. I was certain it was a result of my rambunctious golden retriever smashing into my legs. But no, said the doctor, it was arthritis. (Me? So young?)

She referred me to physical therapy. The physical therapy office never returned my calls.

Desperate (and chubby), I decided to try Pilates. Why? Because all the women streaming in and out of the nearby Pilates studio had the kind of bodies I dreamed of having. And my knee was killing me.

My first, 45-minute Pilates class was a disaster. I was lost when the instructor called out the various positions — dancing bear, French twist, reverse kneeling crunch. I sat on the Megaformer machine, panting and feeling defeated.

“Why don’t you try a few private classes until you get the hang of it?” the studio owner suggested after I complained that she didn’t offer classes for rank beginners like me.

Over the course of the next year, I spent enough money on private lessons to buy a used car. In fact, I was spending so much that I was actually relieved when my cherished instructor told me she was moving to Amsterdam.

With trepidation, I began taking group classes again. This time, it was different. I knew what to do (mostly) and could keep up (mostly).

“Booty, booty, booty,” my class instructor, DeNae D’Auria, calls out as we, on all fours, donkey kick with a bungee cord over one foot to increase resistance.

“We don’t talk about pelvic floor stability enough,” says D’Auria, who is trained in Lagree, which expands on the core concepts of Pilates but is more intense.

“Love to see those shaky shakes,” she says, our muscles trembling as we do squats, lunges and planks enough to fill a lumber yard. “Remember to slow down and breathe. The secret is time under tension.”

I first encountered a Pilates machine almost 25 years ago at the home of the iconic hairdresser Vidal Sassoon, whom I was profiling for The Times. It seemed eccentric, but he looked fantastic for a man of 71.

Pilates classes are dominated by women, but the exercise was used to treat wounded and disabled soldiers soon after it was developed by Joseph Pilates, a German bodybuilder and gymnast who was interned by the British on the Isle of Man during World War I. He improvised the first versions of his famous machines by attaching bed springs to headboards and footboards to create resistance.

He called his system of exercise “Contrology,” focusing on breathing, the postural muscles of the back and the abdominal muscles we think of as the “core.”

After decades as a “little-known form of exercise with a devout but small following that included dancers, singers, circus performers and actors,” Pilates exploded in the mid- to late 1990s, according to the authors of the 2011 book “Pilates Anatomy.” Celebrities such as Madonna and Uma Thurman touted its benefits.

“It suddenly started appearing in Hollywood movies and television commercials, in cartoons and comedy shows, and on late-night television,” wrote Rael Isacowitz and Karen Clippinger. “It became synonymous with going to Starbucks and indulging in a low-fat triple-shot soy latte (no whipped cream, please!).”

The Pilates Foundation estimates that some 12 million people worldwide practice the exercise regimen. That’s a tiny fraction of the estimated 300 million or so who practice yoga.

“Scientific research does support an array of impressive health benefits for Pilates,” the New York Times reported in 2022. “Studies suggest it may help to improve muscle endurance and flexibility, reduce chronic pain and lessen anxiety and depression.”

Pilates’ place in popular culture was solidified in April, when “Saturday Night Live” took it on in a sketch that mocked the love-hate relationship it inspires in practitioners.

“Pilates,” says a deep-voiced narrator. “From the creator of ‘Saw X’ and the marketing director for Alo comes a chilling new look at girl horror.”

For people like me who came of age during the insane era of high-impact aerobics — thanks for the sciatica, Jane Fonda! — the low-impact nature of Pilates is appealing.

I usually do four 45-minute classes a week. I wouldn’t say I look like those lithe young women who surround me there — most are so young that I could be their mother — but a taut core has developed beneath my midriff bulge.

Oh, and that awful knee pain? It’s been gone for months.

@robinkabcarian

Uchenna Awoke’s debut novel The Liquid Eye of a Moon is, on the surface, 15-year-old Dimpka’s coming of age story in the rural Nigerian village of Oregwu. But Dimpka’s story is bigger than this — as it takes place within the specific context of what Awoke calls “human tabooing.”

The novel delves into life in an Igbo family that is considered “unclean” because they fall on the lowest rung of the traditional Igbo caste system. There are varying explanations or “justifications” for these harsh social divisions, including a specific type of ancestor worship. One practice is to dedicate a child to an ancestor, thereby “enslaving” the child to that forebear.

Dimpka’s devotion to his deceased aunt may reflect this spirituality. He is a dreamer, and his most important desire is to build a proper tomb for his aunt Okike, who died by drowning. Although his memory is hazy, Dimpka knows this aunt was extremely close to him. It is not until the end of the book that we learn the details of her death, disclosing why Dimpka may be so driven to give her a proper burial.

This novel also takes place against a history of horrific ethnic cleansing. To vastly oversimplify: The Nigerian government undertook a 1966 pogrom that killed thousands of Igbo people. The Igbos rose up to declare the independent republic of Biafra. The Biafran war for liberation, often called the Nigerian civil war, evoked headlines around the world. It ended in 1970 with the crushing defeat of the nascent Biafran republic. Accounts of the Biafran war have been memorialized in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s searing novel, Half of a Yellow Sun, Chinua Achebe’s iconic book, There Was a Country, Louis Chude-Sokei’s terrific memoir, Floating in a Most Peculiar Way, and elsewhere.

Awoke presumes the reader’s knowledge of this complex background. He declines to translate Igbo terms, sharpening his message that Igbo cultural and political history form the novel’s warp and weft.

Dimpka carries the weight of being the eldest son in his family. He narrates his story in the first person. His maturation is marked by increasing awareness of caste differences, and the grave disappointments and dangers they engender. His closest friend, Eke, cannot bring Dimpka to his home due to social divisions. But the boys’ friendship transcends these taboos, and they explore their village together and share adventures until fate intervenes.

Dimpka’s father fought for Biafran independence but remains in the lowest class, and, as such, is unfairly passed over to be village elder. Dimpka’s parents may have anticipated this injustice, but it wounds the family, especially Dimpka.

Dimpka experiences sharp divisions within his own family as well. His younger brother Machebe taunts him with his self-discipline and consequent generosity and success.

Their father follows a traditional Igbo religious practice that invokes punishing gods, including Ezenwanyi, a commanding queen. Awoke intersperses these ritual stories throughout the book, casting a shadow across Dimpka’s activities.

By contrast, Dimpka’s mother is Pentecostal, and at pains to ensure her children’s Christian salvation.

How can Dimpka contain these divisions and move forward in his life? Throughout his teens and early 20s he tries multiple schemes to lift himself up in society and earn enough to build his aunt’s tomb and bring his family out of poverty. He proceeds as a hopeful innocent, while the reader fears for him. He follows paths that result in his being defrauded, shamed, and beaten down physically and emotionally. His struggles lead to a growing sense of frustration and pessimism. We come to understand that his choices are painfully constricted by the caste system into which he was born.

The moon in the title figures prominently in many scenes. When Dimpka finally succeeds in building his aunt’s tomb, he lies on it beside her, and looks “into the big liquid eye of a moon.” “Liquid” in the title brings to mind the fluidity of life and the lack of control humans have over their fate.

My reading of this novel would have been greatly enhanced by a clearer understanding of Igbo culture and history. Nevertheless, I enjoyed being immersed in Dimpka’s life, the tastes and smells of his mother’s cooking, the description of his fellow villagers, and his travels to Lagos and elsewhere to improve his lot. We feel the dust in the streets and engage in the activity at the local market. These setting and atmospherics help illustrate the suffering imposed on members of Dimpka’s caste.

Awoke’s writing is impressive; his metaphors are refreshing and vivid. Sentences like “Eke lights his crackling bush-fire laughter,” make Dimpka’s friend Eke come alive. Dimpka gives this specific description of his brother Machebe: “Imagine a tiger incarnate with a hard orange-brown stare.”

The book ends on an affirmative, though abrupt, note, with insufficient lead up to its conclusion. If such an ending suggests a novelist new to his craft, the book itself suggests a writer of great promise. Dimpka’s meandering story carries a vital humanitarian message. I look forward to reading more of Uchenna Awoke’s work.

Martha Anne Toll is a D.C.-based writer and reviewer. Her debut novel, Three Muses, won the Petrichor Prize for Finely Crafted Fiction and was shortlisted for the Gotham Book Prize. Her second novel, Duet for One, is due out May 2025.