Laloo's Goat's Milk Deep Chocolate Ice Cream

Ah, remember those blissful times when I assured you that I rarely contract illnesses of any sort? How confident and young I was in that time. It seems like only three weeks ago that I convinced you that I was some schlubby superwoman with lungs of steel, and now look at me. I'm bleary-eyed and congested two ways to Sunday and wandering around in an pseudoephedrine-induced haze because that is indeed how I roll when I got a col'...d. It's the worst kind of illness because it keeps you up late at night without any of the fun and photobomb aftermath of a college party but all of the post-shenanigan symptoms. I'm too tired to get up and do anything productive but too energetic to nap for another week. Hell, I don't even care enough to make myself matzo ball soup, so I'm settling for the next best thing: chocolate goat's milk ice cream.
Yes, bubbies everywhere are shaking their heads and dropping their Arnold Scaasi-designed knitting needles. I've foregone the pervasive soup bowl and picked up a goddamned spoon. Two pieces of vital information prior to the shakedown: this ice cream was free, courtesy of Laloo's. This ice cream was also seven freaking dollars and forty-two freaking cents at my local freaking organic co-op. Seven fitty for a pint of chocolate ice cream. Let that sink in and then, mom, understand that I did not pay real people money for this, because that would be insane. One tenth of a law school application (the part where you compose an essay in Twitter form) and one half of a movie ticket in Connecticut equals this ice cream. Laloo's is an ice cream company specializing in lactose-friendly goat's milk based ice creams with superior digestability. It's ripe with probiotic power and I imagine it gives Activia a run for its money in both the olfactory and Jamie Lee Curtisian factors. With flavors like cajeta de leche and black mission fig, the company intrigued me. Despite my ambivalence to goat cheese, I gave it a go. This ice cream thankfully lacks some of the stronger, brettier flavors goat cheese typically carries, but has a rounded complexity that makes it present, but not front and center, on the palate. So, caprophobics needn't run in the other direction.
This flavor, Deep Chocolate, boasts a short ingredient list with 77% Scharffenberger dark chocolate front and center and a surprisingly low caloric content- 160 calories and 6 grams of fat for half a cup. That doesn't really help considering that I polished off the container in a day and a half, but works if you actually eat in moderation. Ahem. The chocolate flavor is fantastic, with a rich, silky flavor redolent with cocoa and a slightly salted, milky aftertaste that reminds me of eating bittersweet chocolate chips. The chocolate is distinct with none of that ubiquitous "chocolate flavoring" stuff typically employed in supermarket brands. That flavor alone compelled me to eat most of the pint, with no additional ingredient hacking. I was surprised that my sea salt and olive oil went untouched!
Texture-wise was where things got a little freaky. I'm not alone in thinking that this is an incredibly gummy ice cream. Unfortunately, it has the mouthfeel of a Fudgsicle and the price tag of gelato with a fudgy, dense slickness that sticks in the mouth like a pudding with a tangible chew. Not that I don't like that, but it added a strangely generic feel to the ice cream that didn't settle with its image and ingredient list. My other main gripe was that there was a serious filling discrepancy between pints. Of the two pints I picked up, each had air bubbles pocked throughout and the second one was missing about a half inch's worth from the bottom, the ice cream settling atop the space without filling in. You can vaguely see the line where the ice cream did not fill in. A few air bubbles in a quart of Edy's does me no harm, but when you're talking about a dollar's worth of ice cream making up those few tablespoons, I start to raise my eyebrows. I was happy to sample this and enjoyed it immensely, but I honestly can't justify the steep price tag attached to this dessert.

Trader Joe's Lemon and Triple Ginger Snap Ice Cream

Trader Joe's and I are in the honeymoon phase of consumer relations. Every time I go I'm enamored by 90% of their new products, be they things I'd actually use, like chicken sausages, or things I don't need or will never need, like gingerbread dog treats. Comparatively, every time I enter a Marshall's, my previous score for weird, fancy products, God kills a kitten and I start frowning loudly. While it's undoubtedly not in my best interest to buy my weight in salted caramel cookies or chocolate truffle brownies, this ice cream seemed too good to leave on the shelf. I'm generally not a huge fan of ice cream, so for a frozen confection to leave this big of an impression on me was a fairly big deal. And I totally dig the retro Trader Vic's style font. The funny thing was, this was hardly a random sighting at the store. I'd seen a very positive review of this ice cream over the summer on What's Good at TJ's? and was hell-bent on finding some for my own consumption.

I like stepping outside of my comfort zone, even if it seems like a small step sometimes. Lemon and ginger, while tasty, just don't stroke my tastebuds in the same way that chocolate and peanut butter do, or salt, or caramel, but this practically blew most of those thoughts out of the water. It's difficult to find lemon-flavored confections with a dairy base- that is, non-sorbet or Italian ice versions of frozen treats. I have no idea why more companies aren't honing in on this, because lemon ice cream is damned good. Think of a pudding-like, velvety texture cut by the slight tartness of lemon with a candied fruitiness and you're scratching the surface of eating this ice cream.
But of course, I'd have never bought it if it was just plain old lemon. Its ambrosial scents were amplified with the addition of what Trader Joe's called triple ginger, an element that's more than just a totally badass name. The cookie mix-ins in this are lifted directly from Trader Joe's Triple Ginger Cookies, which contain powdered, crystallized, and fresh ginger, and the quart says that each container has no less than fifteen cookies inside. A bold claim, harkening back to the BS of Chips Ahoy! claiming that there were 1,000 chips in each package of cookies. 1,000 chips, my ass. Someone missed out on a killer class action lawsuit there.
Honestly, though, the Trader Joe's claim? I believe it. In almost every bite there are quarter-sized chunks of soft cookies, and at the very least, each bite has an underlying crumbly sediment from the cookie crumbs. In a few rare, beautiful bites, we unearthed preserved cookies that were nearly whole. Ben and Jerry's, take heed. This is how you do mix-ins.
One out of two Asian cat breeds approves of this ice cream.
The flavor of the cookies mingles nicely with the ice cream, as it brings a slightly spicy, comforting thickness to the soft and airy base with strong molasses and clove influences. I don't really get the heat from the crystallized ginger, but it's definitely there in the crunch and somewhat dry denseness of the cookies. Of course, no Asian-inspired ice cream is complete without a little experimentation. Sriracha? Yes, please. The certified condiment choice of hipsters and the homeless doesn't quite work with this, but the heat was all I needed to convince me that this ice cream was freaking incredible. For two non-fruit lovers indifferent to ice cream, we've had this for a day and have eaten half the quart already. Now we're going to go have a pillow fight and play Bloody Mary with our pants off. YOU JELLY.

Burger King Peach Granola Sundae

Soft serve ice cream at fast food restaurants is no astounding aberration from the Holy Grail of All Things Caloric. Restaurants like Shake Shack and Culver's have turned it into a feat for the stomach and palate, with gourmet flavors of frozen custard and seasonal offers. And yet there's nothing so quintessentially paired such as the classic hot fudge sundae from McDonald's. Burger King has recently gotten into the soft serve game and sent me a gift card to try all of their new sundaes and shakes. Lacking the resources and time to write a fudge-stained suicide note, I decided to try them throughout the month and report my findings.

Burger King's peach granola sundae is the last and latest of the big three to do their own spin on a seasonal sundae, following the success of the Wendy's caramel apple Frosty and McDonald's caramel apple sundae. Peach granola may not quite reek of fall as much as the other two, but it carries its own special place in the dwindling days before autumn really sets in. It bridges the gap between autumnal flavors and the last days of summer, a season that New England really seems to want to hang onto.

The composition of a sundae is key, as evidenced not only by the confusion in my server's voice when I ordered this, as though I'd come from the King's HQ and made it up on the spot to test her, and also when she made it. While I didn't get a chance to snap a photo of her fatherly manager guiding her hands as she constructed it, trust me when I tell you it was worthy of an after school special. For $1.49, this is a neat little innovation on the part of the King. I think this is the first time BK has used peach as an ingredient, and it proves itself to be a worthy contender to more traditional sundae toppings. However, eating this is not an easy feat. If you've eaten frozen fruit before, whether before making a smoothie or just as a snack, you know how agonizingly cold it is to bite into one of those mushy, sweet pieces. It's the same case in this sundae. Each bite had to be held in the mouth for no less than a chilly twenty seconds before the peaches began to thaw and the ice cream melted. The toppings retained the chill for much longer than they should have.

In this sense, it is worth noting that this is exactly the reason why a hot fudge sundae is so palatable. The counterbalance of hot and cold elements is comforting and adds a bit of variety and when it's lacking in either, it ceases to be. With this, the balance was thrown off, and while the peach sauce had nice chunks of fruit and a sweet, jammy flavor, it was all ignored as I tried to diffuse the cold. Heating this up would be much tastier. The granola, applied in abundance, provided a nice crunch to the sundae, but lost its honeyed nuances in the sweetness of the ice cream and peaches. Eaten alone, it was fairly plain and bland. There never seemed to be enough granola to maintain a strong presence in each bite.

Overall, with a few slight changes to the sundae, I think this could be a strong contender for the upcoming fall season. I liked it enough to try it again, and as a die-hard chocolate lover, my endorsement for anything containing fruit is ground-breaking within itself. At the very least, it's an innovative and different sweet treat than the standard sauce-drenched sundaes, and makes for a delicious seasonal dessert.

Ben and Jerry's Schweddy Balls

Because the one thing my diet is lacking in are the alcohol-tinged balls of quintuple bypass survivors. I think, on my ever-expanding list of things I genuinely have no interest in putting in my mouth, sweaty balls, or really, the vast majority of testicles, are close to the top. When I saw this in the stores, though, it was hard to resist. Being a lover of all things malty and chocolatey, I figured I'd give it a swirl. And since Ben and Jerry's have had some deceptively decent flavors lately, how bad could it be?

While I won't go as far as to compare it to the tiresome task of teabagging, it's not too far from sucking balls. The label, a hot mess of words, sweater-wearing badgers, and catch phrases to heighten its appeal, describes this as being vanilla ice cream with a hint of rum, loaded with rum balls and malt balls. If you're not already familiar with the joke, it inexplicably capitalizes on the popularity of a very old Alec Baldwin sketch on SNL. Why this didn't live and die in the 80's, I'll never know. In fact, I'm not entirely sure why Ben and Jerry's is focusing on old television tropes in the first place, and at such a late time. Like its namesake, the joke is withered and stale. Ten years from now we'll probably see LOLcats Lingonberry and wrinkle our bionic noses in confusion.

My cat loves eating Schweddy Balls.

The vanilla ice cream with a hint of rum tastes less like Cacique and more like Chuck E. Cheese, in a neutered, pervasive artificial tang that reminds me of a particular Weight Watchers "dessert" of frozen Cool Whip. As a base flavor, this limits it to being a fairly lackluster BJ. This ice cream lacks the packed denseness of other flavors and abandons the traditional chocolate or caramel swirled offering as well, perhaps to detract consumers from wondering if they were getting Schweddy Balls and other offerings from the same general region of the body.

In any case, the resulting product is bland-looking and bland tasting, and to add insult to injury, the package is a real eyesore. But with the shoddy quality of the balls, I'm not surprised. Getting malt balls or rum balls was a crapshoot both in number and flavor. An AC/DC hit this was not. While I enjoyed the frozen, foamy texture of the former, the latter was exuberantly boozy in a rubbing alcohol and Band-Aid fashion.

With a haphazard product like this one, it doesn't take a genius to realize what a blatant marketing vehicle this is. And it shows in the quality of the ice cream, though I did note the subtle jab at making the ice cream a milky white vanilla, thin in texture and somewhat goopy. Regardless, this feels like the shoddy byproduct of a basement-dwelling manchild's inner fantasy, and one that I hope will soon be castrated and whisked from the shelves.

Free Soft Serve at Burger King!

Burger King is debuting its expanded dessert menu, and you can celebrate the end of summer with a free soft serve cone from Burger King! Until October 9th, anyone who purchases a BK Value meal will receive a free small soft serve cup or cone.

Joining the list of desserts are a selection of sundaes and milkshakes. I've got my eye on the peach and granola sundae. Readers, what do you like to eat at Burger King? I'm absurdly addicted to their Double Stacker. Fatass = WINNING.

Arby's Jamocha Oreo Shake

As I type this at the highly respectable hour of 3:55 in the morning, I am reminded as to why I really ought to drink coffee at a more polite hour. Last night, we were at a wedding of some dear friends, and I happened to slurp down a gin and tonic and coffee in succession, and then wildly dance to Rihanna and Creedence Clearwater. And now it's four in the morning and I'm wandering around the house like a zombie, considering pulling an all-nighter but hoping that my own prose will bore me to sleep.

The Jamocha Oreo shake from Arby's didn't have this nocturnal affect on my brain, despite the fact that I drank it in the morning as I would my regular cup of joe. Actually, the only symptom of strangeness I had was the mental association the coffee flavor bought me. Arby's uses very, very cheap coffee in its shakes, which has an adverse effect on how I perceive it to taste. Very, very cheap coffee reminds me of hotel lobbies and convention centers, with a burnt pungency to its nose, but hotel lobbies and convention centers make me think of nice things, like vacations. In this reverse logic, I somehow managed to equate a milkshake from Arby's with high-quality, non-recession based activities. I drank it over the course of three days.
I'm not sure why I was given a large shake instead of a small, as I requested. It could have been the good graces of the Arby's gods shining down upon me, rewarding me for driving to Chicopee, or the evil fates of Hellfire's spawn, condemning my arteries to a destiny more torturous than I'd originally decided to subject them to. Oh well.
The shake was visually appealing, with wide zebra stripes of chocolate fudge running horizontally through the cup. It was one of the first products I'd tried where the real life item resembled the press release. The fudge was a tier better than Hershey's syrup, too, with a rich viscosity and flavor, providing a strange contrast to the crappy coffee flavor. The Oreo flavor was bolder than I'd originally expected- the shake maker was obviously "on" that day and included chunks of Oreo not only on top, but in a fairly thick bottom layer. The pieces started out crunchy and fresh, and the larger ones were difficult to suck through the straw. With those, I had to strain and suck really hard on it, and with the pressure building up from my lips, the contents eventually exploded all over my mouth. Have you seen this? Have you heard about this? I spent ten minutes cleaning the grey goo off my face.
Strangely enough, the combination of rich chocolate, Oreos that got progressively mushier, and cheap coffee grounds was appealing in its own way. Although I couldn't enjoy more than a few sips at a time, the shake had a consistency and flavor that I enjoyed. I feel like it's far better than the shakes from other fast food restaurants, and has a unique and iconic flavor that sets it apart from the standard Neapolitan trio.

Ciao Bella Key Lime Graham Gelato

Happy 4th, readers! The weather here was gorgeous and the snark was at an all-time high. We were slangin' dick jokes and Pioneer Woman potshots until the sun went down. And then we made grilled shrimp nachos. You're jealous. It's okay. For dessert, we had some wonderful baby truffles and some of this new gelato that we picked up at Stop and Shop the other day. Ciao Bella makes a lovely gelato. I'm not sure why I haven't had more exposure to their flavors. Probably that ice cream hang up of mine.
In any case, this is their key lime graham flavor. Pies with graham cracker crusts rank roughly three spots ahead of Cheetos and one spot below hamburgers in the ultimate comprehensive list of "foods that will most likely contribute to my untimely demise," and if the pie's crust is made of Oreos, you can automatically move it up four spots, knocking out both nachos and cookies. Pretty intense stuff there. I think my cardiologist's suicide note is somewhere around here. Might have used it as a coaster for my milkshakes. Ciao Bella's website describes it as "temptingly tart and ultra smooth." These words, along with the phrase, "the nest of delicious" have also been used to describe my lady bits. True story. And also, holy shit, their website intro is long. I had to get up and stretch during a pivotal point in the gelato-based photo montage. Can anyone fill me in on what flavors gelato-slurping girl and apathetic blonde man ended up picking? The tantalizing siren's song of the blood orange? The sultry lapdance of s'mores? Either way, the tag line "slurp, share, fall in love" made me feel like I was at a summer blockbuster. Five stars. I'm smitten.
The gelato is quite smooth, with a less greasy used car salesman vibe, and has a uniformity that I'm not sure I quite agree with. Speaking from experience, I like chunks in my ice cream and in my vomit, and this was just a little too smooth for me to experience the high of eating a key lime pie just like a dementia patient would. I want irregularity. A little variety in my pie-riety. The graham cracker flavor was there, in a very weak aftertaste, and the texture is gone. While I won't stoop to making a second Nazi reference in a row here, I will mention that this gelato is a little too perfect and pure, almost like another post-economic failure nightmarish dystopia where perfection is valued over humankind. What? What? I'm talking about Gattaca, you dicks.
There is a yogurty flavor to this that I wasn't pleased with at first, but ended up tolerating. A tartness and tangy mouthfeel, like buttermilk. Not too sweet. I suppose what really irks me is that the flavor reminded me of a frozen, creamier Yoplait, but with twice the calories and fat. I suppose I could pull the world's lamest switcheroo and crumble graham crackers into my frozen yogurt, but what's the point? With flavors like these, if you're going to have 270 calories and 14 grams of fat in a 1/2 cup serving, pull out all the damned stops, make your ice cream taste like a damned pie, and cram the pint full of graham crackers. We're not buying this for health conscious reasons. Foods like this are tasty, but leave me questioning my personal tolerance for indulging in things that are billed as high quality with none of the end satisfaction.

"Hadley Grass" Asparagus and Almond Ice Cream, Flayvors of Cook Farm, Hadley, MA

And ye, once again, a young writer's thoughts turn to green again in this damning time of heat and vegetalia. Eagerly seeking a new way to eat the omnipresent blasted vegetables my doctor tells me are "good for me," I set aside my conspiracy theories and turn to the wonders of modern day technology, whose edibles perform a brilliant show of Batesian mimicry by presenting themselves in the form of ice cream, namely, the Hadley Grass ice cream, flavored with asparagus and almonds at Flayvor's, an ice cream shop run out of Cook Farm in Hadley, MA.
Cook Farm has the added geniality of seeming as though it's off the beaten path but existing no more than a mile from the center of Hadley and Route 9. Unlike most off convivial roadside pleasures, though, this is more entertaining than the world's largest ball of yarn and less depressing than a year-round Santa's Village.
Those of you who know me well will no doubt find it amusing to conjure up the image of me cruising blindly down the road, each turn getting more bucolic, whizzing past a slowly moving tractor on the road, epithets and curses gnarled up in my head, stopped at the eleventh hour from leaving my lips as I remember that this was an intentional diversion off my regular beaten path to work. My anxiety mounting as I wonder if I'm actually getting to where I want to go or whether I'm going to wind up on the ground, my knees broken by pitchfork wielding youth in overalls with freckled smirks, the waning drawls of Dierks Bentley my last sentient thoughts. The realization that I am, of course, overreacting and that, if only for a moment, I am privy to beauty in such an unlikely place, minutes from the shopping malls and campus. And ice cream. Delicious, delicious ice cream.
It is not often that I have a moment to myself to savor and meander as I please, so when I came across this, I was more than happy to sit in the sun and eat my ice cream, watching the cows who provided the milk for it low and whisk flies off their tails. Cook's Farm is a sylvan oasis in a bustling, busy town, a fraction of what the world may have been like some 100 years back, had they been abundant with ice cream, though, and just as modest. You'll see no neon signs or advertisements here, their only self-endorsement the amenities of their indoor air conditioning.
The Hadley Grass is aptly named. Swirls of shredded asparagus gently dot the surface of each bite and render the entire confection green. It is generously crammed with sliced raw almonds whose flavor has gradually seeped through the ice cream, making it taste of almond milk and the everpresent asparagus. The flavor is not as uric as I expected it to be, rather, it is summery and verdant and mixes well with the nutty base flavor. Like last night's wasabi Kit Kat, it takes an ordinarily uncommon ingredient in dessert and combines it so that it retains a modicum of its first form yet becomes something entirely unique in a different setting.
This is a popular ice cream, one I would get again as well as recommend to others. Apparently my advice is not necessary, as I was informed by the server that the cup I received was one of the last in that day's batch. Flayvors, despite being burdened with a somewhat awkward name, is a lovely place with ice creams and settings as pastoral as the world around it. Stop by if you need a break from the world and the half-assed suckage of Jenji Kohan's attempt to keep Weeds edgy. Man, season 7 is up to no good. No good can come of chinstraps and ten second's worth of lighthearted lesbian prison motifs.

Little Baby's Ice Cream

I'm screaming! Are you screaming?

Caught up with Little Baby's Ice Cream, one of Philly's newest mobile food purveyors — tricycle is how they roll — on their first day of business this past weekend at the Trenton Avenue Arts Festival. It was a busy weekend, as they then triked it on over to the Punk Rock Flea Market the next day.Little Baby's Ice Cream hand makes some tasty and eclectic ice cream flavors that make my frozen custard lovin' heart go pitter-pat. Flavors like cardamom caramel, balsamic banana, earl grey sriracha, bourbon bourbon vanilla, birch beer vanilla bean. They even make a vegan ice cream so all the kids can scream!!
I sampled a scoop each of cardamom caramel and vegan coconut tea. Oh, am I going to steal Little Baby's idea of cardamom ice cream with caramel ribbons running throughout! Creamy and dreamy. And the vegan coconut tea ice cream made with coconut milk was just as good and rich, albeit not as creamy, but that's just how ice cream without cream goes.To find out where Little Baby's Ice Cream is going to show up next, follow them on Facebook and Twitter.

Edy's Slow Churned Rich and Creamy Shakes Cookies 'n' Cream

This was a flavor I had tasted before.

This was a taste I knew very well.
The unmistakable smack of disappointment across my lips! The Edy's Slow Churned Shake not only provided a barely passing bastardization of its iconic idol, its instructions for preparation violeted the fundamental core of maintenance this very beverage is based upon. Edy's. It's called a milkshake. Not a milkweaklystirandgiveup. I ate it with my breakfast of minute champions. A small shake and small sliders.
The Edy's line of shakes and smoothies is certainly easier than digging around in the blender, mixing a quantity of shake no human should consume, drinking said quantity, and vomiting later, but it's also very easy for me to plop a scoop of ice cream in a glass along with some milk and halfheartedly mix it. Or melt ice cream and attempt to slurp that out of the glass. Easy. Not satisfying. Edy's attempts to equate the two, resulting in a rather sad beverage.I chose the Cookies 'n' Cream flavor as an impulse buy along with my weekly stash of sliders, curious as to how it translated into a shake and entranced by the minimal packaging- a feature that would later prove to be not ingenious, but simply lazy. The ice cream alone looked like it could be easily repackaged with a packet of instant fudge in a pinch and labeled as a sundae on the go. The preparation called for a third of a cup of milk, the entirety of which slopped and poured over the edges. This amount was also the bare minimum I got away with using without having to dirty another glass. I was determined to see how far I could get on the flimsy receptacle alone. As it turned out, not far at all.
The end result was like trying to drink soft serve. Thick, slow, and bland. The cookie pieces dissolved to nothing and the flavor was cold and flat. The resulting FDA-approved edible Dirty Sanchez moustache I received was the most indignity I've suffered on behalf of a product, and this is coming from the writer who has willingly eaten buffalo chicken salad. I rest my case with this photographic evidence- this is not a product for consumption, much less child consumptions.Also, no less than thirty mommy blogs are seething in rage at my audacity and hatred of the Beloved Mother Grocery Product. Bless Her Eternal Cold Reign! Spoiler alert: They reduce the average milkshake-capable human being into an adult-sized toddler incapable of operating a button-based electronic. SARRRRRY.

Anniversary Asparagus, Brioche Burgers, and Cupcake 'Cream!

Today was our one year anniversary. For the first of our two celebrations, I decided to make brioche buns for bacon cheeseburgers to serve with our 2000 R. Lopez di Heredia Viña Tondonia Rioja.

The burgers were absurd- like eating a bacon cheeseburger on a croissant. Originally, I considered making fries to serve alongside, but the combination might have killed us.

Dad picked us up some anniversary asparagus.

The dinner was relatively easy to prepare as the brioche dough was made three days in advance and left to chill. We baked a test batch that went over quite well with our two testers, and then made the buns.

The burgers, made from grass fed beef, were topped with seasoned bacon, homemade jalapeno aioli mixed with Sir Kensington's, and Beecher's Flagship Reserve Cheddar. We ate them with crisp asparagus and drank our Rioja. The perfect anniversary dinner!

Next time, we'd eliminate the brioche and save it for breakfast, but the burgers themselves were absolutely perfect! The ultimate start to a new year and an awesome summer.

Sublime, fruity wine to cut the richness of the meal.

Of course, we couldn't end the evening without a trip to Herrell's! Hostess chocolate cupcake for me, mint chip for Keepitcoming.

Thanks for a fantastic year, guys!

Foodette and Keepitcoming Love