“I scream, you scream, we all scream for non-fat tofutti rice dreamsicles”

MULDER: Did you bring enough ice cream to share with the rest of the class?
SCULLY: It’s not ice cream… it’s non-fat tofutti rice dreamsicle.
MULDER: Ugh… I bet the air in my mouth tastes better than that.

–“The Unnatural”, THE X-FILES

It’s Monday, so I’m going to do a Sunday Stealing quiz that’s a few weeks old. Hey, sue me. Here we go–the topic is ice cream!

1. What is your favorite flavor of ice cream?

Coffee, and going even more specific, coffee Haagen-Dazs. There are a lot of wonderful coffee ice creams out there, but Haagen-Dazs’s is the best. I don’t know what it is about that particular stuff, but…well, let’s just say that one of the most memorable nights of my college career centered on acquiring some.

2. If you could invent a new flavor of ice cream, what would it be?

Wow. I don’t know if I’m that inventive, but you know what we need? We need a pumpkin ice cream that does not have graham cracker crust shit in it. And I’m sure it exists out there somewhere, but I can never find any locally, and that makes me crazy. The problem is that the graham cracker crap doesn’t really add anything to the ice cream that’s necessary, in terms of flavor or texture–but it does add one thing that in our household is very unwelcome: Gluten. I wish I had a dollar for every wonderful-sounding ice cream flavor that we had to let pass us by because the manufacturer just had to put graham cracker crap in it, thus making it inedible for my celiac wife.

3. Who do you like to eat ice cream with?

The Wife, of course! Also the kid. But we love ice cream. In fact, one of the best little dates you can have is to go for ice cream with your significant other!

4. If you were a flavor of ice cream, what flavor would you be?

Ooof. Maybe a really high-quality vanilla bean. People would assume I’m boring, but then if you got to know me….

5. Does your family eat ice cream regularly, or just for a special treat?

Not as regularly as we used to (seriously, ice cream used to be a nightly thing!), but it’s definitely more than a special treat!

6. What is your favorite treat from the ice cream truck?

Hmmmm! Probably a strawberry crunch bar, or a Creamsicle. (I’m the only member of my family that likes the orange-vanilla thing. I do not understand this.) And of course, since I developed a hard-core love of all things Shoresy, I have adopted a newfound love of “sticks”.

7. Does frozen yogurt taste different than ice cream?

Yes, but I don’t hate it. I also don’t seek it out, if that makes sense.

When I was a kid we had a cat who loved ice cream. Now, most cats like it (and the dogs love it), but this cat was bonkers for ice cream. She’d come running as soon as she heard you clinking your spoon on the bottom of the bowl, but only if you had ice cream. Finishing a bowl of soup or cereal or ramen? Nope. Ice cream? There she was…unless you were having this horrible shit called “ice milk”, which my parents bought once in a while because, I dunno, they thought it was healthier or something. Well, Poppie would have nothing to do with ice milk. Wise cat.

8. If you could make a super sundae, what would it have?

You know, it would depend on my mood, but a good base would be chocolate sauce or hot fudge, some peanuts (salted), and maybe a bit of caramel sauce. I’m not big on piling tons of toppings onto a sundae.

Sliced apples, cinnamon, and caramel sauce? Oh yeah babe.

A scoop of ice cream on a waffle? Now you’re talking.

9. Can ice cream make a bad day better?

Yes, it can. All good food can. At some point during the whole “weight-loss” craze, probably starting in the 80s or 90s, we started preaching against “comfort eating”. And I suppose I understand, on a certain level, but as usual we Americans took this concept and inflated it to our usual Puritanical heights. Moderation is key and one should try to be healthy and diverse in their food choices, but dammit, enjoying something because it tastes good and it makes us happy to eat it is important. (And then there’s all that stuff the Frugal Gourmet used to say about food and memory. I believe all of it.)

10. Have you ever had homemade ice cream?

Probably? But I don’t recall offhand where that might have been. Hmmmm!

11. When is your favorite time to eat ice cream?

It’s good any time! I’ve even had ice cream for breakfast. There’s a restaurant we love in Rochester called Simply Crepes which is a favorite stop of ours for breakfast when we’re staying overnight in that area. They have a menu item that’s a sweet hazelnut crepe with ice cream on it. The Wife ordered it one morning, not realizing it came with ice cream on it. That was a hell of a breakfast!

But I suppose I would really gravitate to late afternoon or early evening, around sunset or just after. There’s an ice cream joint just down the road that we love that is done up like an old-school gas station from the 1930s, and it just feels right.

12. What is the best kind of ice cream you ever had?

See above, the coffee Haagen-Dazs. But also, Ben&Jerry’s had a wonderful flavor called “Scotchy Scotch Scotch”, which they released in conjunction with the Anchorman sequel, because Ron Burgundy loves Scotch, see? It was a butterscotch ice cream with some other stuff in it, and it was fantastic. B&J is notorious for flavors that are gone to memory, sadly enough.

Oh, and the maple ice cream we get at the County Fair each year. That’s wonderful.

13. Do you prefer your ice cream in a cone or in a bowl?

An edible vessel is a thing of wonder. I love cones. We’ll usually have bowls at home, though.

14. Is there such a thing as a bad flavor of ice cream?

Setting aside all the weird “prank” flavors that some places like to cook up for April Fools Day, I am not a big fan of marshmallow in my ice cream, or banana flavors.

15. They say an apple a day keeps the doctor away. What does an ice cream a day do?

If done to excess, it certainly makes the overalls tighter! But it doesn’t seem to have done President Biden any bad favors, so….

16. Is ice cream better when it’s fresh or slightly melted?

Honestly, I’ll take it either way, but if it’s in a cone it should be harder. (Unless we’re talking soft-serve, which is different entirely.)

17, What is the craziest flavor of ice cream you’ve ever seen?

Probably the stuff that had Gummi Bears mixed right in. Not a fan.