E&D-GABI-37 IT'S LATE AUGUST. I'm sitting in a popsicle shop, sweating. ...

IT'S LATE AUGUST. I'm sitting in a popsicle shop, sweating. The popsicles are cool as can be, sheathed in clear plastic wrappers, flashing their bright and milky colors in the frosty display case. The air conditioner appears to be broken, but the freezer works, and so does the jukebox, which blares Mexican folk tunes.

Paleteria La Michoacana may be the only business in New York City right now built on popsicles. It originated in 1999 in the Jewish area of Brooklyn's 14th Ave., and in 2002 moved to 5th Ave. in Sunset Park, where most of the bakeries, restaurants, sidewalk vendors and markets are Central and South American, and where Spanish is the language spoken on the street. In order to sustain itself year-round, Paleteria La Michoacana doubles as a restaurant.

Owner Demetrio Aguirre hails from Michoacan, a state in southwest Mexico where popsicle-making is apparently a birthright. "All the guys from my state, they know about this product and they know how to make it," he says, neat in a polo shirt and glasses. "I started when I was 11 years old. I remember how people in my town gave me a small little car, you know, little wagon for carrying pops that I would push."

Aguirre immigrated 15 years ago, and he and his family capitalized on his native knowledge in 1998 when he decided it was time to test the market for his popsicles, which in his sweet but tentative English, he refers to off and on as "lollipops."

"I watched all the places in New York; I go to see what was missing, and I think now's the time I start my small business." In an effort to test the market for his "pops" and "froze fruit," Aguirre bought a truck and proceeded to drop off samples at several Spanish markets. The subsequent interest in the popsicles spurred Aguirre to invest in full-fledged manufacturing.

Aguirre runs the business with the assistance of his wife, Maria, and three children. The elder daughter, Selene, sits at the restaurant's back table and is joined by the youngest, Jammillett. (Giovanni, their brother, is not there that day.) A slight 12-year-old dressed in pink with curly bangs and a long, dark ponytail, Jammillett holds a dull greenish popsicle as she climbs into a seat beside her sister. Out of all the brightly colored and sweet fruity pops stacked in the freezer case, she chooses this one-cucumber with chili pepper, her favorite.

"We're sick of most of them," says Selene, an 18-year-old with the bearing of a responsible older sibling and impressively long fingernails. "But that flavor's really good."

Briny and generously spiced, it's almost like sucking on a frozen pickle. It may be new to the American palate, but the girls like it, and with its bracing flavor, it's more grounding and restorative than a sweet pop.

Many of the 56 flavors, like the cucumber chili, are geared toward the Central and South American tastes. The most popular flavor is made from nance, a yellow cherry.

"If I make 400 boxes a week, it's nothing," says Aguirre. "They keep ordering and ordering; every store wants that flavor."

All of Aguirre's pops are made with fresh fruit-crates of which were delivered during our time together, and as we spoke, the smell of fresh watermelon drifted in from the back room. Other varieties, like tamarind, cactus fruit and jamaica, dried hibiscus flower, as well as other pops that mix sweet and spicy-mango with chili, pineapple with chili, tamarind with chili-have endeared this product to New York's Hispanic population, at least judging by the 300-plus Spanish markets that receive weekly shipments.

On the surface, the pop-making operation, which takes place in a small room in the back of the store, does not betray the volume of Aguirre's business. The process seems simple enough-crush the fruit, mix it with the remaining ingredients, pour the mixture into molds, insert sticks as they freeze in a water bath, remove from the molds when solid, put them into wrappers, seal, box, drop them back in freezer. It takes about 15 minutes to make one batch of pops, and Aguirre says they churn out 1100 to 1200 every hour.

Aguirre is borderline obsessive when it comes to perfecting a flavor, and in hindsight believes he owes his success largely to this trait. The recipe for the lime pop, he says, took two months to formulate. "When you give it the color you don't give it the flavor, when you give it the flavor you don't get the right color," shrugs Aguirre. "Maybe someone smarter than me can take less time, but it's very hard. I don't think anyone is going to make it the same as mine, that recipe."

Indeed, the lime tastes of fresh-squeezed juice, without any of the bitterness, though the color is closer to the day-glow green that one might associate with a lesser pop. He says that his customers can tell the difference between his pops and those manufactured by a host of competitors that have sprung up in recent years.

Now Aguirre is looking ahead. He will spend winter perfecting new flavors-carrot with spice, carrot with cream and a wine popsicle, for which he needs to obtain a special permit.

"These will be very good." o