A moment of levity in the madness

[krait]

Proof that people in my city have no taste: I went to the grocery store tonight and there wasn't a single bag of cheap macaroni in sight, but there was ginger coconut rice.

Who would rather eat cheap macaroni than coconut ginger rice?

The real reason I was at the grocery store was an urgent desire for cake, but they didn't have any cakes I wanted so I ended up with three ice cream flavours instead. Let's hear it for Browned Butter Bourbon Truffle, Maine Blueberry & Belgian Waffle Cone, and Wildberry Lavender Mascapone!

Two of which I have sampled already. :D

Comments

[flowersforgraves]

ohhh those first two sound amazing! I wish I liked lavender. I hope they were good!

[krait]

Can now confirm: they are good!

Browned Butter & Bourbon Truffle: the truffle bit is pretty underwhelming; it just comes across as hard pieces of chocolate? But the browned butter ice cream base itself is amazing - there's a savoury hint to the flavour and I really, really like it.

Maine Blueberry & Belgian Waffle Cone: This might be the best one. Nicely intense blueberry, and the waffle cone pieces are sweet and mostly still crunchy. I feel like there's a hint of maple in there, but that might be my brain making stuff up because I first read the name as 'Maine Blueberry and Belgian Waffle' and was expecting it to taste like breakfast waffles. :D

Wildberry Lavender Mascapone: This one's the hardest to pin down. For something called 'wildberry,' they bafflingly chose the two most domesticated berry types; it tastes faintly of strawberry and maybe a hint of blueberry, though the ingredient list tells me there's raspberry in there, too. Beyond that, the mascapone ribbon is scant and I do not detect any hint of lavender. Pieces of white chocolate do not contribute anything in particular, either. Despite being bewildered or dubious about pretty much every component part, though, it's pretty tasty - smooth and creamy and faintly fruity but without any distracting texture outside the chocolate pieces. I think I'm going to make a sauce out of some frozen blackberries and try that as a topping on the rest.

[zdenka]

People who can afford cheap macaroni and not coconut ginger rice? Or people who are going for something simple and familiar when everything seems scary? I don't know, it doesn't seem that weird to me. (I have a very nice bag of jasmine rice myself to get me through.)

Ooh, that ice cream sounds delicious.

[krait]

It's just me being weird! I have never eaten coconut ginger rice before, ever, but I have had cheap macaroni maybe five times in my whole life, so it's only familiar enough for me to know it's completely underwhelming. (As I told my boss today when relaying the story: "As far as I'm concerned, macaroni is for glueing to construction paper.")

I can recognise on a certain level that most people will choose the familiar over the unknown, but given the choice between "this is new and has bold flavours!" and "this is familiar and boring" (especially when it's also "blandest and least nutritional food I can think of"), I am always going to opt for new and bold, so it remains baffling on the emotional level. Kind of like people who enjoy sleeping in cold rooms - I understand that that's a thing, and a common thing to boot, but WHY you'd want to do it will never really gel for me!

[zdenka]

If you're on a limited food budget, then cheap pasta can be a staple and a thing people eat every week. Boring or not boring doesn't really enter into it when you're just trying to put food on the table. People's tendency to choose the familiar over the unfamiliar is one thing, and it can be interesting to think about. But sometimes people are gonna buy the cheap thing because it's the cheap thing because they don't have enough money, and it feels a little tasteless (as it were) to point and laugh at them for it.

But I don't think this conversation is really being useful, so I'll stop now.

[krait]

...I just now realised that nowhere in my post did I mention that the coconut ginger rice is cheap, too; oops. They are about the same price!

If it helps, I do understand that people eat what's cheapest, especially now (and I'm no exception - these are financially stressful times for me right now, so in general I do have empathy for those in similar or worse situations).

[zdenka]

I appreciate that acknowledgement. In case it's not clear, I wasn't speaking theoretically; I just didn't want to go into personal details.

[krait]

Very welcome! I definitely should have made it clearer in the post. (And I edited my own comment to remove some personal details, so I understand about that bit.)

[kimboo_york]

Those ice creams sound amazing, omg, what brand are they????

[krait]

They're just the 'fancy' store brand! Meant to be equivalent in quality/appeal to Godiva or Ben & Jerry's, but still less expensive. I'm impressed by the flavour options, honestly.

Baskin Robbins needs to hire whoever's coming up with flavours for this company, so they can stop putting a name-brand food in vanilla ice cream and calling it a new flavour. :P And I really wish the store had had cream; just looking at these made me want to concoct a few more homemade ice cream flavours of my own. (Definitely planning on a cherry-and-something, once I have supplies. Cherry & amaretto? Cherry & marzipan? Cherry-Elderberry-Almond? Must consider...)

[walgesang]

I keep meaning to say that your teas have been keeping me delighted these past few weekends! ♥ (and that I'm way overdue for sending some your way as well.)

Those are some delightful ice cream flavors!

[krait]

Oh, I'm glad you're enjoying them! Nothing like new teas to bring a little excitement to the day.

The ice creams are all somewhere on the scale from 'quite good' to 'delicious,' I am pleased to report. :D Details can be found under the first comment if you're interested in the breakdown.