I’m currently in New York and my days are a dizzy spin of hugs, reunions, dinners, drinks, goodbyes, hellos, laughter, friendship, sunburn, walkingwalkingwalking, shopping, sugar, rooftop sunsets, wonderment. A horde of Australians, both food bloggers and old non-blog friends of mine, have descended upon Manhattan and Brooklyn this month, and dear heavens am I ever packing my days full of adventures with those good folk. Adventures too great, too sprawling, too happy, too enveloping, to write about right now.
So, here, something different, something easier to write about, something sweet but nowhere near as sweet as life itself.
Ice cream.
Don’t ask me why Ben & Jerry’s is proclaiming that this is “Still a Pint!” on its lid. Was I supposed to doubt it was a pint? What is a pint? I live in metric world, where pint only makes sense in terms of beer and Pa’s nickname for Laura Ingalls Wilder (“Half-Pint”).
Don’t ask me what red velvet cake is supposed to taste like. I bought Ben & Jerry’s Red Velvet Cake Batter Ice Cream with Red Velvet Cake Pieces & a Cream Cheese Frosting Swirl because I wanted to learn what red velvet cake tastes like.
I didn’t learn anything. This was a sweet sweet sweet ice cream with moist red cake pieces that were sweet, swirled through with an almost indistinguishable cream cheese swirl that was also sweet.
I do know what tiramisu tastes like. Tangy, creamy mascarpone, rum-soaked spongy lady finger biscuits, cocoa. Ben & Jerry’s Target-exclusive Volun-Tiramisu was described as Coffee Mascarpone Ice Cream with Cocoa Dusted Coffee Rum Lady Finger Pieces, and do you want to know what it tasted like?
Yes. It tasted sweet. I could taste nothing tangy in the mascarpone base, no rum in the lady fingers, and only a hint of cocoa.
You, Mr Ben & Jerry’s Berry Voluntary Raspberry Cheesecake Ice Cream with White Chocolate Chips and Raspberry Swirls, were such a disappointment in your (say it with me now!) one-dimensional sweetness, lack of raspberry tartness, and white chocolate that tasted like plastic that you don’t even deserve a photo with your top off.
That’s right, Berry Voluntary. No Ice Cream Gone Wild for you.
Oh Talenti Sicilian Pistachio, you saved me from the blight of saccharine disappointing American ice cream, yes you did. Thank you for being very smooth with pure pistachio-true-pistachio flavour and whole roasted savoury delicious pistachio kernels hidden inside.
You were not as good as the pistachio gelato I had in Florence, but s’okay. You were very pleasant nonetheless.
Talenti Sea Salt Caramel Gelato! As m’dear Jeniqua would say, you blow my hair back.
Readers, if you enjoy eating delicious things just for the sake of eating delicious things because life is grand when you eat delicious things just for the sake of eating delicious things (and if you be not vegan or lactose intolerant [as I am pretending not to be]), then I suggest you get your hands on this pint of silky rich burnt-caramel-deep-caramel-the-deepest-moreish-salt-kissed-caramel gelato studded with tiny little chocolate covered caramel cups.
You can thank me later. By buying me another pint (STILL A PINT!).
This Skinny Cow Cupcake Batter Low Fat Ice Cream was quite possibly the most miserable thing I can recall having put in my mouth of late. It was so very, very wrong. The taste was horrific. The texture was horrific. The logo was horrific.
I’m so ashamed.
Babamba! Babamba! Babamba!
Even if these ice cream bars had not been filled with chestnut magic I’d have bought ‘em anyway, because it’s entirely fun to say Babamba! Babamba! Babamba!
The end.
