One of my favorite desserts is a simple bowl of vanilla ice cream, a drizzle of Hershey’s syrup, and a handful of honey roasted peanuts. (I thought it was called a “Tin Roof” but, apparently, that also has marshmallow sauce and uses Spanish peanuts (with skin) instead of honey roasted.)
I mean, you don’t need much more than a bowl of vanilla ice cream and some chocolate sauce and some peanuts. It tastes sweet and salty and nostalgic. It tastes like watching Laverne & Shirley in front of the television. But it’s also just a good, solid dessert. Some insist on something more pinky-extended than Hershey’s syrup but I don’t seem much need to branch out into the Ghirdellis or the Boscos or the U-Bets. The classics are good enough.
But I went out shopping earlier this week and glanced in the Blue Bell case to see if they had some of the Southern Blackberry Cobbler ice cream which is, seriously, the absolute best ice cream in the freakin world. The little flakes of pie crust make a spoonful of the ice cream taste like the best part of eating a bowl of Grangran’s cobbler.
Sadly, they didn’t have what I was looking for. Interestingly, however, they had this:
Dr Pepper Float? Like, vanilla ice cream swirled with Dr Pepper sherbert? Okay fine.
And I brought it home and it tastes like a Dr Pepper ice cream float.
Dang it.
Which had me start to think about the different ice creams you get. Normally (like 5 times out of 6), I pick up just another tub of Tillamook Vanilla Bean. It’s not particularly expensive (regularly on sale, even), has tiny little vanilla flakes, and has a great flavor. With the syrup and the peanuts, you’ve got a dessert fit for a king.
But 1 time out of 6, I go for gilding the lily. Not just the wacky Blue Bell stuff but sometimes Ben & Jerry’s crazier stuff like Chubby Hubby or Tonight Dough (in the late 80s, I read an issue of some magazine where Ben and Jerry were interviewed and they talked about their rock and roll flavors like Cherry Garcia and mentioned “Grape Slick” and I thought that grape-flavored ice cream sounded heavenly but, of course, nothing comes up when you google for that and you just get a bunch of articles talking about why grape ice cream isn’t a thing).
There are also a bunch of candy-bar themed ice creams like Snickers or Twix or Reece’s and those are fun for a scoop here or there (not a tub’s worth of fun, though).
But then I found myself thinking at length about whether the simple ice cream that you doctor yourself is better than the complex pre-doctored stuff… and, yeah, 5 out of 6 times, I want to doctor it myself. But, occasionally, I see something like the Dr Pepper Float ice cream and, dang, it’s really good too.
This weekend, Maribou and I have a date at the movie theater where they bring you hamburgers halfway through. We’re going to watch “Novocaine”. We’ve seen the commercials during wrestling and, hey, an everyman with a condition where he can’t feel pain deals with his crush getting kidnapped? Heck yeah! Sign me up! And even if the movie is awful, well, hey. Hamburger and maybe I’ll get an essay out of it.
Saturday is game night and Sunday is yet another day for chores and errands before getting thrown back into the deep end on Monday morning.
So… what’s on your docket?
I work four-tens, so I normally get a three day weekend with Friday off. However, last weekend one of my dogs started limping on Sunday, so I ended up with a four-day weekend last week to take him to the vet. Confirmed our suspicions, since he is a 12-year-old corgi: arthritis.The worst part (for us, not him) is confronting the fact that he is entering his twilight years. That also means I only get a two-day weekend, which feels like nothing at all when you are used to three.
Nothing too exciting on my to-do list. My wife’s car needs a new battery. We still have boxed up Christmas decorations to get into the attic. My 3D printer has been wonky, but I hope replacing the nozzle will help. It will be my first time doing it, so hopefully it goes well.
I know it’s not the video game post, but I nabbed Pony Island for ~$0.75 on the Steam Spring Sale. That’s practically free.Report
Spring Sale? But it’s the middle of Lent! They can’t have the sale yet!
Out of the 51 available games on my wishlist, 50 of them are on sale.
13 are at 50% off or more.
3 are at 60% off or more.
1 is at 70% off.Report
What do you do with your printer? I’m in another spurt of downsizing, and as I haven’t built any odd little wood gadgets for years now, will be getting rid of the bench-top power tools. I can’t imagine not having some sort of tool though, and have been thinking about a printer. They’ve gotten a lot cheaper than the last time I looked, and seem to be of much higher quality.
When I got all the tools out, I discovered that I only had one safety interlock key for three tools. Spent a lot of time looking online and couldn’t find replacements (the tools are well cared for, but old). Then changed tactics, found a CAD file for the part in ten minutes, and spent another five putting in an order at my public library. They’re cheap, but slow, so I don’t know when the new keys will be done.Report
Okay. We saw Novocaine. It was a fun dumb movie. IT WAS RATED R!!! So, like, if you’ve seen the trailers and wonder “how hard of an R is it?”
Well, on the drive home, Maribou and I hammered out that it was “Action-Comedy with a *LOT* of Body Horror”.
So it’s a Body Horror Comedy Action movie. If your response to that is “oh, good! I was hoping they’d make one of those!”, this is a good one. I mean, if you see it with your doctor friend, he’s going to be like all of the computer guys who went to Live Free or Die Hard and explained that “that’s not how computers work”.
But if you can get past the fact that that’s not how computers work, you’re going to enjoy a pleasantly dumb movie that is glad that you bought a ticket and wants you to come to Novocaine 2: Lidacaine.Report
From the Thrillist article on why grape ice cream isn’t a thing:
Strawberries are 91% water, though!Report
According to this piece, the grape skins present another problem, but the bigger issue is that there’s not enough demand for grape ice cream to make it worth anyone’s time to try to overcome these challenges.Report
You’d think that there’d be a sherbet or something, though… lemme google.
It’s apparently the name of a strain of weed.
Okay, there are a couple of pinky-extended small-batch artisanal places that make it. But it ain’t common. Get rainbow instead, I guess.Report
Oh I screwed up the hyperlink — I shouldn’t try to do that kind of thing on my phone:
https://www.3newsnow.com/why-grape-ice-cream-nearly-impossible-find/
But it doesn’t really try to explain why there’s no demand beyond the obvious — it’s not a thing so it’s not a flavor that usually comes to mind when you think ice cream. More of a popsicle thing.Report