Friday, June 19, 2009

Vanilla Doesn't Mean Plain

I've always liked vanilla ice cream. It bugs me a little that people associate it with "plain;" it's not like other ice creams are made by starting with vanilla and then adding flavors. Just like you add chocolate to milk and sugar (and the other stuff they put in there to make it smooth, etc) to make chocolate ice cream, you add vanilla to milk and sugar to make vanilla ice cream.

But even I have to admit that HEB has taken things a bit far. HEB is a large grocery chain here in Texas. Like many large grocery chains, they have their own line of foods, including "Creamy Creations Premium Ice Creams." For reasons I don't fully understand, that line of ice creams has way more flavors of vanilla than are necessary. Eight (as far as I've seen so far), to be exact: Handmade Vanilla, 1905 Vanilla, Vanilla Bean, French Vanilla, Lo-Cal Vanilla, Hand-Churned Vanilla, Vanilla Frozen Yogurt, and, because someone clearly had a sense of humor about all of this, Vanilla.

Clearly, just randomly picking one of these each time I get ice cream is not adequate. I had to figure out which one I like best. So, logically, I had to set up brackets.




So far in round 1, Handmade Vanilla pulled off an upset over 1905 Vanilla (going into this, I thought 1905 Vanilla was my favorite, but it lost handily when I put it in a head-to-head). I have Vanilla Bean and Vanilla in my freezer now for their first-round matchup. I'll report more as I get further into the project.

4 comments:

McCarron said...

I fully support Aspberger-based culinary research.

Die Anyway said...

Jon,
You wouldn't by any chance be the person who went into a vanilla rant over on Pharyngula? If not, then you have a fellow vanilla fanatic out there somewhere.
And while you're eating all of that ice cream remember that it's 100 calories per mile to burn it off. Be sure to do your miles.

Jon Harmon said...

Die,
Hmm, nope, wasn't me.

As for the exercise... I'm working on it. I'm TRYING to get in the habit of biking to the bus stop (a couple miles away) and then busing to work at least twice a week... but so far I've only done that once...

Jon Harmon said...

I've been informed that chocolate ice cream actually *does* have vanilla as an ingredient. Huh, I never knew that.

Also, the second "Vanilla Bean" in my bracket should be "Vanilla Frozen Yogurt." Oops.