Flavor Review: Blue Bell 'Banana Pudding'

   As stated in a prior post, I will post my thoughts on the commercial stuff found at local stores in case readers out there want to try them out, but are wary. I am here to ease that fear. I tastes all things ice cream.

   My quest brought me to a safe haven this week, and I had the fortune to trod on familiar grounds. I was intrigued by this flavor after falling in love with Banana Creme Pie ice cream. Blue Bell usually does well with creating flavors; though at times, it can taste cheap and manufactured. I enjoyed Banana Pudding. It was creamy, but not quite as creamy as I think gourmet ice creams should be. The banana flavor was startlingly huge. Blue Bell nailed that fake banana flavor found in banana puddings, especially the Jell-o mixes. I personally like that fake taste.
   My brother and I were talking the other day about certain flavors, strawberry to be exact, and how often the real flavor loses us. Real strawberry ice cream made from fresh strawberries is good and natural, but it's only good, not great. It can get icy faster than you can say Millennium Falcon, and is a bit bitter. Then we got to talking about how good the strawberry shakes are from Burger King, which we used to slurp down in our childhood. They weren't made from fresh strawberries; rather, they were made by blending a syrup into ice cream. This, people, can be done if it's worth it, meaning it produces good results. I'm all for natural ingredients, but if there is another alternative that creates a better flavor, then I will look into that too.
   All this to say, the fake banana taste is great, and I am all for it.

   Blue Bell improvised the meringue topping by creating a sugary cream swirl that was spot on. It tasted like frozen meringue. Brilliant. In my Banana Creme Pie I use a marshmallow swirl to emulate this, but what they did works too. It was copiously swirled in, which gave the ice cream a nice balance of banana flavor and meringue flavor.

   The highlight of the ice cream was the chunks of vanilla wafers. They were of varying sizes, but all were spots of buttery, bread-y goodness that punched a whole in the wall of texture (as seen in the photo to the right where a bold wafer juts out like the bastion of the Citadel in Minas Tirith). It's good to have that opposite texture balance. The banana ice cream and meringue were smooth and creamy, but the wafers offered a much needed oasis of soft chewiness.

   This flavor was great. I wouldn't change anything from what they did to recreate the classic banana pudding dessert. Well done Blue Bell. You provided blissful rest in my enduring quest. After a few days with your best flavor to date, I must plunge back into the frozen world in search for true, gourmet ice creams. Farewell.

-Reese O'Shirey Esq.

 

Flavor of the Week: Maple Bacon Walunt

   Another week has elapsed in my quest, in which I ventured to great heights. To combat my diligent foe, Isie, I decided to make inroads on a flavor that is quickly becoming a permanent one in my hidden list of "Future Flavors". These flavors are a treasure trove, a chest of frozen gold where I keep my most sacred and tested flavors that will someday be in my scoop shop. Alas and alack for that glorious day, when the world will be shown what true ice cream is, and will be able to tangibly taste it in all its creaminess and wonder...

Maple Bacon Walnut - smooth, creamy maple ice cream with bits of candied bacon and buttery salted walnuts.

   In contrast with last week's fruit flavor, which cast an icy barrier over the rich creaminess inside, I sought after a flavor that would refute all of Isie's efforts, rendering him useless and absent. This flavor was Maple. As some of you might attest, this was one of my creamiest flavors to date. The maple with its intrinsic sugary density provided body and rich support the my normal cream base. I only use the purest of ingredients, and Vermont maple syrup is the purest of them all. Vermont is to syrup as is Chilton County to peaches. Ok, Vermont may have a slight edge in that comparison, but nevertheless, the syrup of the Green Mountain State is king.

   It was a rather simple base to procure, but difficult to get the right balance. What I sought after in my ice cream was a bold maple flavor; unlike Maple Blondie by B&J, which tastes like frozen sugar because they add sugar AND maple syrup in copious amounts. The key to a perfectly balanced ice cream is to be flexible and adaptable when creating the ice cream. If adding a sugar-dense substance like maple syrup, then the sugar added to the custard base has to be frightfully low, or nil. Adding both will leave consumers with a base that dominates the palate, and numbs the taste toward anything else. Adding only maple allows it to have an open avenue to meld with the cream without exterior competition. I wanted bold, but not sugary override bold. As mentioned previously, the maple base was dream-like creamy, a land flowing with milk and maple. The end result was exactly what I was seeking, and it paved a smooth, sweet road for the add-ins.

   I chose walnuts because 'Maple Walnut' just speaks Classic. Although maple ice cream is a relatively recent discovery and has now become trendy, its combination with walnuts is a colloquial friendship of sweet and tart. For the walnuts I use a recipe given to me by my sister-in-law's grandmother, but I have since tweaked it slightly. It includes laving the nuts in butter, and sprinkling with a good, coarse salt, then sliding them into the oven for a few minutes to get that roasted sensation throughout. Doing it this way will literally make the walnuts melt in your mouth. Bathing them in melted butter, then heating them up, allows the butter to seep into the dry nuts, causing an explosion of flavor in the mouth; the mouth doesn't know how to handle it, so it instinctively gets rid of the intruder by the quickest means possible: melting it. The walnuts provided an excellent contrast to the sweet base with their salty tartness, which added a welcomed 'kick'.

   The idea of bacon in ice cream scares many of the fair-weatherers, as they run away screaming for their cookies and creams and mint chocolate chips. But for those of us who stand up and say, "I want more out of my ice cream. I want to 'boldly go where no man has gone before,'" then bacon seems reasonable, even natural. Pairing bacon with maple was not a difficult choice to make. It came almost immediately when I decided upon maple. It was like recreating Saturday morning (next time I'll throw in walnut waffles to replicate that wholesome, sanctified morning more aptly). Candied bacon in any form of dessert has most definitely become trendy, to the point where I want to step away from it...almost. Just look at any 'hip' dessert joint in NYC, and you'll find bacon stuck somewhere it doesn't belong, like cookies or cupcakes, or...ice cream...because it's cool and weird. It's like being a Modernist painter or writer at the turn of the century, doing normal, familiar things in totally un-normal, counter-cultural ways. And just like in the early 1900's, it still scares people away because people can't like what they don't understand. This is what bacon does to the world, it divides it. I chose to candy the bacon because it enhances the flavor, combining a caramelization with meaty smoke. It was a marvelous outcome. The hint of smoke that exploded each time a piece of bacon rose up in the spoonful was heavenly. It was crisp and sweet and smokey and killer.

   This flavor was meant to confuse the mind. It was a blend of everything the mind works through when eating various foods: sweet, salty, savory, tart (instead of the normal sour that goes with this list). My quest was exponentially furthered in its direction this week. Creating anything abnormal, that turns out tasty, always points me in the right direction: the path to unparalleled flavors. Thanks for reading.

-Reese O'Shirey Esq.

Flavor review: Ben&Jerry's Volun-Tiramisu

As is the basis of this blog, I furthered my quest for gourmet ice creams with a recent flavor from Ben&Jerry's, and who better to look with than with two of my best friends. I scour all types and brands of ice cream on my quest, so I often indulge in these pints a few times a week. Actually, it's not really an indulgence since it is such a frequent occurrence.

Volun-Tiramisu - coffee mascarpone ice cream with cocoa dusted coffee rum lady finger pieces.

First let me clarify a few of these scary foreign terms. Tiramisu is an Italian dessert made from lady fingers (light and sweet sponge cake) dunked in coffee, layered with a whipped cream made from egg yolks and mascarpone (an Italian triple-cream cheese), and flavored/dusted with liquor and cocoa. So, from the description it seems Ben and Jerry recreated the dessert exactly, only in ice cream form. Ben&Jerry's teamed up with Target, and released Volun-Tiramisu as a part of a four-flavor line up supporting Volunteerism, hence its name, Volunteerimisu.

This was one of the creamiest flavors I've had by Ben&Jerry's; it resembled Chunky Monkey in texture, very creamy, but a tad foamy, which is something I have not encountered in a B&J flavor thus far. That characteristic is never associated with great ice creams, just those big-5 gallon-plastic-tubs of ice cream, whose brands you don't even recognize, found piled in Wal-Marts. And it should stay there, in its frozen grave until it happens to be picked up by an unfortunately ill-learned couple seeking a frozen treat for the night, thinking they're getting a steal because it is a third of the price of one pint of B&J. As I was saying, it's not a desirable trait to have in your ice cream.

The ice cream base was a mild coffee flavor, much like an iced coffee would taste from Starbucks. It did not resemble their other coffee flavors, Dublin Mudslide and Bonaroo Buzz, which have a coffee density strong enough to keep you up at night. This was a soft coffee flavor, so as not to overtake the flavorful add-ins. The coffee flavor was descaled by the mascarpone. I think the mascarpone was the element that fostered such creaminess, though I could not taste it in particular against the other elements. In an ice cream of my own I would not decrease the coffee flavor. I like the flavor the other two held, but this one tasted "cheap",  even though it provided a subtle background for the lady fingers.

The lady fingers were, in a word, dense. They typified what I think of when I hear sponge cake, though it does not compete with Twinkie-like sponginess. It mimicked the texture of a normal white cake, but resembled the taste of a pound cake. They were coated in cocoa, not only to replicate the actual dessert, but to prevent them from becoming soggy masses suspended in rich ice cream, thus ruining the entire experience, for this is the way with bread-based add-ins. Well thought out B&J team. I liked the lady fingers in the ice cream, though I've had nothing in an ice cream like them before, nor am I a big fan of cake in general, and I could not taste the rum mentioned in the description. These were a new experience, and that is what I am looking for: new things to broaden my frozen horizons, and to find what accents create gourmet ice cream.

I stated that B&J replicated the dessert well, but not the right way. Gourmet ice cream truly replicates a dessert by recreating that dessert in ice cream form, not just throwing bits of the actual dessert into ice cream. Anyone can do that. Want carrot cake ice cream? Throw pieces of carrot cake into vanilla or cinnamon ice cream. Wrong. For Tiramisu, I would have stuck with the coffee ice cream, making it a tad more pungent and combined it with a rich chocolate, but I wouldn't have put any cake pieces in. Instead, I would have made a creamy, breaded swirl out of mascarpone and lady fingers. This would have truly recreated the dessert in frozen form. "Don't get cheap on me, Dodgson."

That's all there is to this one. This flavor was basic compared to most of their wacky concoctions. I will be reviewing more flavors in the future, and giving my $0.02 worth. If you want to know how one tastes before you buy it, then ask me, and if I haven't had it already, then I will buy it, eat it, review it, and then you'll know everything you want to know about it, and probably a little more than you wanted to know.

Ben&Jerry's cow says: "Volunteers rock."

(Yes, I finished it, all 920 calories of it. This is mid-process. Look at the extreme creaminess. This is a characteristic sought far and wide for by many a ice cream maker)

-Reese O'Shirey Esq.

Homegrown Alabama

Alas, I have returned mid-week to pay tribute to my latest discovery: the Homegrown Alabama's Market in Tuscaloosa. It is tantamount to a Farmer's Market, save for the fact that about two-third of the venders do not run farms. I went for the first time last week in search of fresh peaches to incorporate into last week's hit, Fuzzy Wuzzy. I was successful, and purchased a box of extra-ripe peaches from the friendly farmers from Burnette Farms. This week I found something else...

In the late afternoon sun, Homegrown Alabama was bustling. It seems to be the "new" "hip" place in town, where you might find Down-to-Earths, Hipsters, Musicians, Alternatives with their wacky tees and skinny jeans; you know, the people who swoon over organic food, and anything pulled out of the ground. Despite Tuscaloosa rivaling Hades for its spot atop the throne of Hottest Place in All Creation, I strolled (with my skinny jean cut-offs, and Canon hanging around my neck) down Hackberry Lane toward the distant, mellow music emanating from the market.

It did not take me long to see the sign "homemade ice cream". It was practically a bullzeye. But, as I should have suspected, no one there takes plastic, it's not biodegradable or natural. So, I had to hustle back to the ATM, and print out some cash. Finally, I returned and was able to purchase some of the advertised ice cream. I needed to see what the competition was like.

After visiting last week, I had a strong desire to become a vender at Alabama Homegrown because no one there was selling ice cream, but to my highest disappointment there were two selling my favorite food this week. By the time I got back, one vender, AA Farm Creamery from Millbrook, had already sold out. I was left with only one option: Todd's Produce. But this place looked promising, with a creatively colored sign, and another one boasting Chilton County peaches, and we all know Chilton County is the peach capital of the South. They offered two kinds: peach and strawberry. It was $3 for a cup, and I bought both.

Peach: upon first bite I could tell it was most likely made Philadelphia style--a term in the ice cream world used to describe egg-less ice cream; essentially it was not a custard base (French Style). I use a custard base. It was creamy, but it lacked the density of a French Style. It had a decent peach flavor, and miniscule spots of the actual fruit. It tasted similar to those old Flintstone push-pops I used to eat as a child. That was cool, but weird coming from a peach flavor. Overall, it was good, but let's be honest, it's hard for ice cream not to be good. However, my senses for ice cream have been honed with years of vigorous training, and I could tell it was homemade. It didn't have that "ice cream shop" taste or texture. It tasted like something often found at a church picnic.

Strawberry:  I am not a huge fan of fruit ice creams; I prefer more substantial ingredients like peanut butter. This one, again, was easily discernible as homemade. Unlike the peach, however, the strawberry was much icier. It seems as though my arch-enemy, Isie, is spreading his aqueous fingers toward other ice cream makers. In fact, it was very icy. Although the fires of Tuscaloosa did weaken his (Isie's) strength, the photos clearly show the extent to which he can prevail amidst any element or climate. If you look closely you can see him rearing his frozen head amongst the pools of strawberry cream. I was not completely pleased with the strawberry. It was good, but, like the peach, not what I am searching for, not gourmet ice cream.

My quest is on-going. Tis a arduous task, this ice cream-tasting, but I shall press on. I do not know where my quest will lead to next, but I do know that Maple (Bacon) Walnut is this week's flavor, so check back on Sunday for the analysis of experimentation and fun reading. Until then, happy eating.

-Reese O'Shirey Esq.

Flavor of the Week: Fuzzy Wuzzy

As promised last week, I am posting, each week, a new flavor, intrinsically unique--a quest for gourmet ice cream.

Fuzzy Wuzzy - honey-peach ice cream with honey-caramelized peach chunks.

I must begin by addressing the name: Fuzzy Wuzzy. This might have gathered smirks or quirks, but its origin is rooted deep in the bowels of childhood fun: a simple, short rhyme that has puzzled children for decades (I still don't know, for the life of me, what color Fuzzy was). I chose the name because it embodied all that is and was my ice cream flavor. Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear, right? At least that's what I hear. Well, bears love honey, and peaches are fuzzy. There you have it. Honey-peach. Simple.

My quest for ultimate gourmet ice cream journeyed me into foreign lands this week, for I have never attempted a peach ice cream. It proved a difficult task. Fruit flavors tend to be icy because of the copious amount of liquid (juice and water) they house 'neath their permeable skins. These peaches were no different. But war was waged, and fires forged in the attempt to battle back the ubiquitous foe: Isie ('icy'). I wanted to replicate a real peach flavor: an ice cream that tasted like the origin it was derived from. So, I set foot to ground in the local farmer's market in search of true, homegrown peaches fostered by real, working, sweating Alabamians. And did I ever? One stand was teeming with peaches: large, ripe, and globular like the harvest sun as it sets in all its golden furry. Once I disclosed that I was making ice cream, the owner of the 'peach tent' showed me around back. There he offered me a bushel of peaches that were 'over-ripe', and discounted because he couldn't sell them. So, I took him up on the offer, and lugged the fifty-pound box homeward. The creation began.

(all the luscious peaches might have drawn me in, but this sign at the peach stand is really what caught my eye)

For the peach base, I used milk, cream, eggs, sugar (my standard base), and those peaches. To replicate that unequivocal peach taste, I first had to remove their fuzzy clothes. This is a simple procedure: take a knife, and cut an "X" into the base of the peach, (I must confess I got carried away, and began pretending to be a masked hero like Zoro when he wields his keen blade, and carves a "z" into the necks of countless foes. But I was Xzoro...) then just drop them gently into a pot of boiling water for ten minutes. Remove them with a slotted spoon, or by pouring them into a colander, then surprise them with a blast of cold water. This scares them, allowing for their belts to loosen a bit. Let them cool, and they will do whatever you want; their clothes will slip right off...Now, back to the issue at hand. Once peeled, I cut the peaches into irregularly sized chunks, and put them into a pot with organic honey. I brought it to a boil for a minute, reduced the heat, covered the pot, and cooked for ten more minutes until they were very soft. The flavor was, to quote my uncle, "out of this world". The honey brought a natural sweetness to the sweet/tart taste of the peach. The honey-peaches in the pot I then put into a food processor and whirled until they were a smooth burnt orange sludge. But don't let the word 'sludge' out you off. I like to think that this is how food would taste on the sun, where everything is molten and orange and crazy good. The puree was then added to my sweet cream base, and allowed to cool overnight to let the flavors fuse and congeal.

For the honey-caramelized peach chunks I repeated the skin-removing process, then chopped them up, drizzled with honey and sugar, and popped 'em in the oven to broil for ten minutes. 'Elementary, my dear Watson.' Then I put them in the fridge to cool.

I took the peach-base out of the fridge the next day, and congeal it did. It was the consistency of pudding. This is always good, the thicker the better, I say. And it made for a rich, creamy ice cream. While churning, I threw the caramelized peaches in to let their flavor seep into the freezing ice cream, and also to harden.

Alas, the battle was over. The result was magnifatory, though war never comes without a price: after freezing for a few hours, some of the ice cream became slightly icy (such a fowl word in my line of work). The peach chunks, due to their juice, were the most icy of the experiment. The ice cream itself was creamy, and I was pleased with that. Nevertheless, the peaches did provide a texture difference from the creamy ice cream, and a bite into one brought forth Summer on a tidal wave of flavor like a new dawn rising, spreading its arms over the field of battle (my kitchen). And that was my goal: to embody Summer and capture it in an ice cream flavor; and I think peaches did this perfectly.

To all those who tried it, I hope you enjoyed it. The quest is on-going here at Shireshack, and I must venture on to realms unknown, seeking new and exciting ice creams, and always pursuing to defeat my greatest enemy: Isie. Until then see you next week.

-Reese O'Shirey Esq.    

Flavor of the Week: Parent Trap

Each week I will be posting a newly created flavor, or my own version of a traditional favorite. I create, make, and churn all my own ice creams, using nothing but milk, cream, sugar, eggs, and add-ins (i.e. peanut butter).

In producing a flavor, I try to conjure up an original name, a name that will be unique to the flavor, a name that creates a backbone with its meaning or nostalgic history for me.

This week I chose 'Parent Trap'. When I was a child, Disney produced a remake of the '61 classic "Parent Trap," casting Lindsay Lohan, who we have all come to love and admire, and her clone as the twin sisters to play the main role. My siblings and I watched this movie often, but one thing I gleamed from the campy movie changed my life forever. In a scene when the two Lohans are in isolation at camp, they begin eating Oreos. But not just Oreos, mind you; Oreos smeared with peanut butter. I had never thought of this before; it wrought a connection, a fusion of two worlds of tasty desserts of which I frequently indulged myself. It was a perfect combination.

Over a decade later, it struck me. I had to tape into that etherial combination of chocolate and peanut butter. And in doing so, I berthed one of the greatest ice creams to date. As you might be able to deduce, my 'Parent Trap' contains peanut butter and Oreos, but it is far more than that. In the thought process of such a creation, I mused over possibilities and flavor combinations. But it proved simple: the chocolate and peanut butter must be of equal value; one must not have residency or supremacy over the other. And this is where many of the art go awry: they allow one flavor to control too much of the overall flavor. I say "nay". Thus, I decided upon it: rich chocolate ice cream ribboned with smooth, creamy peanut butter, and layered with crunchy, chocolatey Oreo cookies.

I have never been one to praise chocolate ice creams. That is because all I have ever had are the the store bought brands that use cheap chocolate that has no depth or balance in their ice creams. In creating my chocolate base, I first create my own chocolate, molten and decadent, by combining cream with a blend of Dutch cocoa and mildly dark chocolate. This chocolate blend is then added to a personally pasteurized mixture of milk, sugar, and eggs. And viola! A balanced, blended chocolate base unlike any found in stores or local ice cream shops (Coldstone? My take on that shop in the near future) creates the canvas to which I can perfectly paint peanut butter pathways.

Peanut butter, for me, is a way of life. It is more than a food, or an item spread over bread. It is a daily, if not meal-y, consumption. Therefore, I go to great lengths to master its presence in ice cream. After I whip up a bowl of my sweetened peanut butter, I liberally layer it in the chocolate base, and it then becomes a frozen river of salt renting its way through a land of sweetened creation. And that's what it is all about. The coexistence, the rivalry, the harmony of salty and sweet. And as I alluded to earlier, I make them equals, so that neither has triumph, nor is shadowed. In my ice cream you will find in each bite the mirthful presence of sweetened chocolate yet simultaneously be pricked by its salted rival, peanut butter.    

Last of all is the special guest referee: Oreo cookie. Instead of chopping up Oreos wholly, I carefully remove the cream (because it is just puffed sugar and doesn't do well or taste good in ice cream), and only use the dark chocolate cookie sides. With these I create a crust, a layer, a gravel road that paves its way over the vast lands of chocolate, and bridges the breadth of the rivers of peanut butter. It adds that oh-so-desired "crunch", the likes of which can not be mimicked or faked. A crunch in ice cream adds another dimension, by detouring from the prevalent creaminess, that enhances the already enjoyable experience.

The first time I made a batch of this it proved to be the best to date, and promised to become a future classic. This was three months ago (March). In April, I walked into Target, and my legs, as if by their own volition, made a direct course for the freezer section. It is a habit I have. Whenever I go into a store or shop that carries frozen goods, I always check their ice cream selection even if I've been in there and checked it countless times (as in the case with this Target). But that day I found something new. Ben&Jerry's had just released four flavors as apart of their aid of Japan relief efforts and support of volunteerism. But one flavor struck me: "Peanut Butter World". I read the description: Milk Chocolate Ice Cream with Peanut Butter Swirls and Chocolate Cookie Swirls. Sound familiar? Yeah, I thought the same thing. Cursing my misfortune of Ben and Jerry hitting main stream with the flavor first, I purchased one. The name is something of a clever pun though. Here, the word 'Butter' is in place of the word 'Better', leading to the phrase "(peanut)Better World" achieved through volunteerism. Nevertheless, it was a good flavor, one of their better ones (I won't do a review of it in this present blog, but I might in the future), and an exact replica of the one I had churned out a month prior. Oh well, thus are the plagues of us smaller-batch makers. I must press on.

If you would like to see more pictures of the ice cream and flavors I create, then here have a look. It's just something I've put together for my experiments. The extra I put into pints for some friends.

Feel free to leave any questions or comments. Thanks for reading.

Ice Cream: More Than a Dessert

When someone says "ice cream," most of the time everyone's eyes widen and their faces brighten. Why is that? What makes ice cream so special, and sets it apart from other desserts?

I have always loved ice cream. I label myself as an infatuate of ice cream. When someone asks what my favorite food is, I succinctly respond, "Ice cream." It is usually shrugged off with a laugh by the inquirer, but is sometimes accompanied by the inquirer saying that they too love ice cream. I'm sure they do, and mean well when they agree with my statement, but I always think quietly to myself, "Do you really?" I mean it when I say it. It is my favorite food, not just a favorite dessert, not just a favorite craving, which always bemuses me. I have come to think that cravings only apply to girls. I rarely hear a man say, "I am really craving ___."How does that work exactly? Does it just hit you while at work on a Friday afternoon, and you think, "Boy, I really want some ice cream right now." And then the rest of your day is spent distractedly in your thoughts of how you're going to cuddle up on the sofa with a pint while watching "Desperate Housewives". I don't think I ever "crave" anything, I just eat. I love ice cream so much that I eat it everyday, and therefore can't imagine what feelings are associated with not having ice cream. And maybe that is why I never crave it; it is always present.

But what is it that makes people melt at the mere mention of it? To me, it is the simple fact that nothing else creates a so-enticing sensation in your mouth that, upon contact, you immediately go, "Mmmmm," or "Whoa."

I've created the Three T's to aptly describe why ice cream is so radical in its must-have-ness: Temperament, Texture, Temperature.

Temperament: this is described in Merriam-Webster's online dictionary, http://east.m-w.com/thesaurus/temperament?show=0&t=1307310089, as one's characteristic attitude or mood. While this is normally applied to humans, I apply it to ice cream. Ice cream is always in a good mood. Ice cream always puts you in a good mood. You cannot be mad and be eating ice cream; it's impossible. It has a perfect temperament: debonair. And it's from this that it derives its creaminess. Its creaminess is unparalleled. This creaminess also correlates with its next attribute.

Texture: ice cream is so serenely smooth in texture that the tongue tingles when the image of it travels through the sensory pathway to the brain. And its this very smoothness that creates the heavenly sensation. The first thing that comes in contact with the ice cream (unless your a 5 year old boy) is your tongue, which is characteristically opposite of that of ice cream. It is the whole opposites attract motif. And I am a believer.

Temperature: the sensation felt when eating ice cream is amped due to it extreme coldness. Ice cream is often served at or just above 0 degrees Fahrenheit, so when this hits the tongue--body temperature: 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit--a unique and marvelous difference in temperatures occurs which creates the elated experience.

It is each of these things that makes ice cream unique and different from all other desserts or treats. I mean, what does a cupcake have on ice cream? Pooft. It's not even sold warm, and the icing is just sugar fluff. I'm not one to line up and stand for 45 minutes for a cupcake. But then again, have you seen those lines lately? I didn't think so. It was a fad. Ice cream has, and never will be, a passing trend. It is an ever-present part of our society. It is a part of my diet. It is more than a dessert. It is an experience.

If you love ice cream, then this is the blog for you. Feel free to post any questions or comments.