Bake and Shake

THIS IS SO GOOD: LaLoo Goat's Milk Ice Cream (sandwiches!)

 

Friends, this stuff is so good. I am a whole muddle of stuff, genetic/ethnicity-wise and some of the stuff I am can't handle lactose. When I was younger this wasn't a problem - I drank enough milk to keep my body hooked on it. The older I get though, and the less liquid/frozen dairy I eat (cheeses, even fresh cheeses like mozzarella, don't present problems) the more my genetic background is ready to take over and make me pay with a stomach bloated with gas whenever I eat ice cream or drink milk.

So today I was grocery shopping and saw these with their Lactose Friendly claim and threw them in and I AM TELLING YOU - ignore everything about the Bambinis besides the taste. Nothing else matters. They are the best ice cream treat I've ever had, the richest, smoothest tangy-like-creme-fraiche ice cream ever. Like you're eating a cheesecake ice cream sandwich, no ice cream, just solid cheesecake between two chocolate cookies. They are little, and maybe that is a selling point but I'd like a foot-long version for myself. A SOLID 12 INCHER. I don't understand how these taste as good as they do. I've really never had anything better. I wish I could send you guys some, every one of you. Instead, I am going to eat them and think of you, fondly, softly. Sweetly.

If you see them, buy them. I did, with my own money so this is something I stand behind with an empty wallet and I'm going to keep them under my pillow tonight. When I awake, my scalp and side of my face coated with melted goat's milk ice cream, the ants already beginning their pilgramage, it will be in a happier future. With no night farts.

BUY THEM/EAT THEM NOW. 

Also, Tracy is FAMOUS GUYS. Such a good lady. Go check out her kitchen (like you haven't already) at The Kitchn!

Chocolate. It finds YOU.

Some time ago, I was sent a giant box in the mail.

Oh, nice. What was inside?

Assorted Chocolates, Fleur de Sel Caramels and Ginger, Earl Grey, Mint and Kahlua Truffles

Oh Charles. Based in San Francisco, with a commitment to using organic, natural and quality ingredients (for instance, their chocolates are either 41%, milk, or 61% bittersweet. Those are some nice cacao percentages), Charles Chocolates has an intense selection of tasties. Do you like that most official language? I have no idea if they know what kind of site is advertising their classy goods. But not just chocolates -- pate de fruit and Meyer Lemon or Blood Orange marmalades are among their offerings. I haven't tasted them. But I bet they're legit.

I've never had this happen before, you know, so I don't know what I'm doing beyond the obvious -- I ate these chocolates, and they were delicious. They were also free, and free from strings, and I shared them with a lot of people and we all really liked them. So I'm telling you about them, like everything else I like, only I didn't have to pay shipping and handling.

Charles Chocolates also included one of their Edible Boxes, a bittersweet and white chocolate fully-edible vessel, filled with heart-shaped truffles, each infused with either Passionfruit, Raspberry or Mojito flavors and dusted with silver or gold luster. The passion fruit was my favorite -- it's sweet tang contrasts so well with the dark chocolate, and each piece is so quality that it literally dissolves on the tongue, small enough to feel like a private indulgence. You know? Like I don't like describing food in the way of a Lifetime Movie commercial, but it was. Truly "A Private Indulgence: Starring Delta Burke and Meshach Taylor, reunited for the first time since 'Designing Women'".

But what really got to me, in that particular way, was the box of Fleur De Sel caramels included in the three-box assortment. Thin wafers of chocolate enrobed, chewy caramel that honestly taste just of butter, sugar and salt -- they aren't gloppy, and the caramel didn't spill out after the first nibble like so many others, instead it strings and tugs against your teeth and then melts instantly. These chocolates and confections aren't grainy sweet, they aren't overwhelming and in some cases (the mojito truffle) the flavors chosen for each piece almost surprise you, make you think and identify each note. Like an SAT Prep course, these chocolates. Or that Jazz CD someone keeps playing every time you're in the car. That damn Jazz CD.

They were really good. Everyone who came over ate some, and the lies I fed my loved ones and friends were intense -- this site is a secret, in that "I don't really talk about it" way, and explaining why there was a large amount of fancy chocolate delivered to me was hard. "I won. A contest." And the chocolate box, which sounds like a Janet Jackson track or something Ja Rule might rap on, was the best because people went feral -- first they didn't believe it was made of chocolate, then they'd pick it up and gnaw a corner off. So many mouths, so many happy mouths cracking into a lid, a slab of decorated white chocolate, or the box itself, which was dark chocolate. So thank you, Charles. Whoever you are, you chocolate heathen, for bringing such fantastic sin into my life. I keep pencils in your boxes, now.

Candy Girl: How Addictions Begin

"Chocolate covered staples. Really delicious."

So, I don't like candy.

I like chocolate, I like white chocolate, I like caramel, I like things that are "enrobed" or "coated". But I've never been someone who has to have Junior Mints or Milk Duds, who needs a Nestle's Crunch Bar or she will somehow molt her skin and grow a cloak of tacks and roll over your face. "I just needed chocolate! You can have reconstructive surgery! You hated your nose. You hated it. Stop making me feel guilt, it makes my eyes burn."

So when I'm hooked on a "candy", something that can't fight it's way to my mouth fast enough, I find it to be a big deal. Right now I'm hooked on The Cocoa Room's dragees and mixes. So far I've enjoyed the Baby Blue Almond Dragees (which are so beautiful, glossy and robins-egg blue that I hate eating them, but I do. Because I don't mind eating beautiful things. I put diamonds in my pasta. Kidneys in my shoes.), the Pistachio and Toffee Dragee mix which are pretty dangerous. Like you will need to eat them all to feel better about eating half of them. That's how this works, this kind of dangerous logic. And then a version of this, the Eclectic Dragee Mix, only the colors are pink, green and white.

That's it. That is all this post is about, how much I like candy even though I don't. I have to go follow those aqua almond dragees back to their room now, and pretend I live in the same building and not a van, on the same street. In a different city.