"Is there such a thing as milk-flavored ice cream?" With summer pie season around the corner, it's important to have the right vanilla ice cream for proper scoopage on top. We conducted a blind tasting with six readily available nationwide brands: Häagen-Dazs, Ben and Jerry's, Blue Bunny, Breyers, Horizon, and Edy's (aka Dreyer's in the western states). They were judged on a scale of 1 to 5, according to texture, flavor richness, and overall vanilla-ness. The results, in descending order: Häagen-Dazs Score: 4.5 This was a unanimous crowd favorite. It had all the trademarks of a good vanilla ice cream: nice silky mouthfeel, major potential as an apple-pie buddy, and, hey, it actually tasted like vanilla. Keep up the good...
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-->Here is a food memory: I am ten years old. My best friend and I are standing at the take-out window of our local ice cream parlor. We are wearing matching jean skirts and Minnie Mouse T-shirts. We have both ordered cones of cookies 'n' cream. The waitress disappears and reemerges a few minutes later with a cone in each hand. The scoop on the right is encrusted with huge chunks of Oreos, like chocolate meteors. The scoop on the left has clearly come from the bottom of another barrel—it is mostly vanilla, dotted only here and there with crumbs. My best friend and I begin to wiggle and squirm, bumping into each other as we vie for the better...
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I've never been a fan of American Idol. It always seemed like an ultra-glorified version of college a cappella to me. But then, perhaps I'm biased. I went to a small liberal arts school in New England, where it was practically impossible to walk across campus without being aurally assaulted by an all-vocal version of "Karma Chameleon". The show just raises so many questions: Why don’t the contestants get to sing original work? Why must they be under 30 years old? Why is Simon Cowell's chest so horrifyingly tan? And now, why has Edy's/Dryer's created a line of American Idol ice creams?...
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