NCDS Icy Eight: Write-Ups
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Cookie dough vs. chocolate. Chocolate is a strong default, but I think cookie dough scores higher on the “unable to put down the pint until it’s finished” scale.It’s an easy call for me — while I don’t eat cookie dough ice cream often, I vastly prefer it to chocolate — but voters asking themselves which flavor to take to a des(s)ert island for the rest of their lives may have a hard time leaving chocolate back in civilization.Anyone’s guess, really.
Cookies and cream vs. mint chocolate chip. Total no-brainer in this voting booth: mint choc all the way.Glark’s Fist o’ Baby-Bashing Doom is no match for a waffle cone of green crack, compliments of Uncle Louie G.Cookies and cream will fight hard, but I predict victory for Gang Green over the mighty Oreo.
Strawberry vs. peanut butter and chocolate. Just like the little girl with the strawberry curl, strawberry is one of those flavors that when it’s good, it’s very, very good and I love it. Personally, strawberry turns me into a purist, and as tasty as p.b. and chocolate can be, I do think the classic flavor will take this round.
Vanilla vs. peanut butter cup. …Not so with vanilla, though. As awesome as really good vanilla ice cream can be — alone or dolled up by your personal balance of caramel sauce, nuts, sprinkles, granola, or splashes of nocino — I think the “ice cream with stuff in it” is going to win out. Slightly more refined and definitely not as junked up as the Hubbster, p.b. cup is utterly craveable.
Tags: food Glark punches another baby Uncle Louie G
The “Glark punches another baby” tag is *slaying* me!
I hope strawberry wins – I ate a whole quart of it over the weekend!
I can’t believe vanilla’s falling behind! Maybe it’s “boring” by itself, but who in their right mind eats it by itself??? Vanilla needs to triumph for its endless variations.
What are you going to put on your raspberry tart, your rhubarb pie, your peach cobbler, your apple crisp? A-la-moding is, to my mind, one of ice cream’s highest callings, and vanilla is the name it calls. (And it’s got to be Haagen Dazs’s rich creamy vanilla, or Breyer’s natural with those nummy bean specks.) Vanilla makes a damn fine base for a dark, rich homemade hot fudge, or a caramel sauce, or a drizzle of fresh strawberries in sugar syrup. Of course I like a good peanut butter cup ice cream now and again, but for day-in, day-out, go-to versatility? VANILLA ALL THE WAY!
Hee. When did Glark punch his first baby?
I’ll be kind of sad if mint choc chip wins. Cookies n cream! So good! Ah well, more for me.
In fairness I could not vote in the second half of these match ups. I have an unfair prejudice against peanut butter.
I could theoretically vote for #4, because I do legitimately like vanilla, but if it were vanilla versus ice cream with “stuff” OTHER than PB in it, I think the answer would be different. Meh. Am I taking this way too seriously?
But seriously. Peanut butter. Stay out of my desserts. Thanks.
Mint Chocolate Chip is good, but Cookies and Cream with REAL Oreos is da bomb. I can’t believe its not taking this one. e
I never even considered myself that much of a peanut butter cup fan, but the other day when Boy and I were debating which ice cream to treat ourselves with, it came down to peanut butter cup or Dreyer’s A&W root beer float. We fell for the “Limited! Time!Only!” appeal of the summery root beer float flavor. And it’s good, don’t get me wrong! But ever since then I’ve been craving the peanut butter cup, and have been slightly disappointed that we went with the creamy swirly choice rather than that choice with yummy stuff in it.
But now Sarah’s post is making me crave vanilla. Or vanilla with hot fudge or caramel sauce. Or apple crisp or rhubarb pie a la mode.
Damn, I need to hit the gym.
I’m going to CRY because once again, all my favorites are competing against each other.
I’m guilty of not being able to stop a pint of cookie dough once I start it. It’s just so GOOD.
But then, I do like chocolate. And I LOVE a good vanilla, and most peanut butter cup ice cream is crap. But. I. *sobs* The only one here I DON’T love is mint chocolate chip. (Yeah, I know, I’ll show myself out.)
“Maybe it’s “boring” by itself, but who in their right mind eats it by itself???”
Well, I do, but I love vanilla. Even though I said pb cup was craveable, I really do adore me some high-quality vanilla. Dressed up or alone, it’s fantastic. It’s also the first flavor I made in my ice cream maker back when I spent a summer making several gallons of ice cream and sending them in with Dr. Mathra to share with work people. (Couldn’t have them at home. Temptation.)
Mint, I will say again, is the taste equivalent of fingernails on a blackboard. It’s like listening to Fran Drescher being tickled, while you’re biting on tinfoil. My hate for mint is stronger than any current, deeper than any well, darker than any permanent ink. Or some other really dark thing. HATE.
You watch, it’ll win.
I can’t vote for some reason — the voting page is totally blank!
So I’ll log my vote here for mint chip in that contest.
That’s all right, Molly – I’ll buy you a cone on our way out. Most of your preferences are my foibles, too. Except for the cookie dough thing. (Do I lack some gene for raw-cookie love?) I couldn’t vote for mint chocolate chip because I find the kryptonite green of most mint chip off-putting. I have been known to eat a pint of HD Mint-Cookie Whatsis, though: with the not!Oreo cookies smushed into *undyed* peppermint ice cream. Oooh. So good.
OooooOOOh. Soon we’ll be down to the Frozen Four!
Nah, Molly, you are not alone. The combination of mint and chocolate, for me, will forevermore mean “the solstice, and Christmas, and Boxing Day, I spent sleeping in the bathroom thanks to norovirus.” I can’t even get it close to my mouth without wanting to heave. Thanks, After Eight that was the last thing I ate Dec. 20, 1996.
As an ice cream addict, I request a poll for Ben & Jerry’s Half-Baked. Then you get cookie dough AND chocolate. OM-NOM-NOM!
My ABSOLUTE favorite ice cream is Mint Chocolate Cookie from the Bent Spoon in Princeton, New Jersey — so it’s a bit weird for me to see cookies & cream compete with mint chocolate chip. If they’d only merge their awesome powers!
I gotta give my vote to cookies & cream, though — and I’ll be kind of surprised if it doesn’t pull out the win. Mint ice cream suffers from serious inconsistency problems. The good mint ice cream is heavenly. The bad stuff tastes like toothpaste.
I am, sadly, not getting the voting when I click the link. But I’m sure at some point I’ll be able to vote for my beloved vanilla. Not vanilla bean (yick). Just vanilla, please.
Oops. Never mind. It was my new antiscripty thing.
But I agree about the peanut butter. Get out of my desserts. Maybe in a candy bar. Definitely in a sandwich (a grilled PB sandwich!). But not willy nilly in all and sundry.
I had to click the link to Uncle Louie’s and i now have a burning question-what the hell is cremolata?
Cookies and Cream, I LOVE YOU!!!!
Uncle Louie G’s all the way! Even the mint chip ICE is delicious! SO DELICIOUS! I want one RIGHT NOW.
You anti-mint, baby-punching people HAVE NO SOULS. Without mint, the world would be a mess of halitosis and knowing exactly what everyone else had for lunch. Mint is the glue that holds our society together! And mint chocolate chip ice cream is the thing that keeps me from going on a killing spree!
However, I will concede that the inconsistency of MCC is problematic. Luckily, there’s Breyer’s and my local ice cream joint to keep me in happy mint goodness.
“Without mint, the world would be a mess of halitosis and knowing exactly what everyone else had for lunch. ”
So eat an Altoid. Ice Cream is dessert, not mouthwash!
@ Jaybird: You are not alone in your hatred of mint. Or your growing despair as it continues to prevail. Stupid, burning cold substance of doom. Get out of my freezer, get out of my gum and toothpaste, get OUT of my LIFE. Thank whomever for cinnamon, which is fortunately becoming popular as a substitute for those of us who can’t quite bring themselves to punch a baby (hee!).
@ Kat: OM-NOM-NOM! totally made my day. :D
I am also a mint-hater. This is because I have a strong physical intolerance (technically not an allergy) for mint and related flavorings. Minty things minimally give me nagging headaches and can induce migraines and vomiting. So… not a fan. My intolerance has weakened a little as I’ve gotten older, but I’m certain that even if I were cured of it I’d still have very, very strongly negative associations with mint. :(
The idea of eating ice cream to improve my breath, though, that’s sort of brilliant. Of course no one ever complains when my breath smells like dulce du leche.
I think for your next throwdown you should borrow Jason Kottke’s idea of the best show on television: http://www.kottke.org/08/09/best-show-on-tv-ever
Oh, but Mint Chocolate Chip shakes. Yum. So good. Especially when the little bits of chocolate jam up the straw. They are a joy from my childhood and I refuse to share them with my kids when I get them today. That’s it, we are stopping at Baskin-Robbins after I pick the kids up from school–my son will get chocolate, my daughter will have pink (that’s Strawberry) and I will indulge in a milkshake made of Mint Chocolate Chip. Yay! Ice cream dinner! I don’t even have to cook.
I mostly hate mint because when I was 8, I expressed curiosity about wintergreen Skoal (smokeless chewing tobacco). My semi-sadistic mother, seizing an opportunity to squick me off tobacco products FOR. EVER, ran out and bought a tin of the Skoal, and packed my mouth full. The stuff makes you salivate, and I’d already been taught that “ladies don’t spit”, so…I swallowed. Which meant I spent three days lying about the house retching and praying for the blessed release of Sweet Sweet Merciful Death. Hence the mint hatred, across the board.
As someone who is deathly allergic to mint (like, you know how some people are allergic to peanuts? That’s me and mint.) I’m totally in the cookies and cream love. My boyfriend who is diabetic, will eat the sugar free one by Edy’s without stopping to breathe if I let him.
I hate vanilla ice cream. Hate it. it’s like the water of ice cream (and I hate water. why oh why don’t our bodies need eight glasses of diet Dr. Pepper a day?!). I find cookie dough almost as boring, even though I know, objectively, that there’s much more flavor in there than just vanilla. So, I’m awfully bummed that chocolate is getting knocked out by cookie dough, and that vanilla is winning its bracket. blech.
@Jaybird, that explains it! I was thinking it was just a de facto mint hatred, which I cannot understand. But childhood trauma is an excellent reason. Please feel free to continue hating mint. Your mom is mean. :-)
Cookies & cream FOREVAH!
Cookie dough ice cream bugs me. Mostly because when it first came out, I was thinking “Ooh! Actual frozen cookie dough! Comes in a pint now! Awesome!” But no, it was cheapass vanilla with chunks of cookie dough in it. Such a disappointment! I can eat raw cookie dough by the spatula-ful, so why would I want little frozen bite-size chunks of it watered down by boring old vanilla?
I’ve never been a big ice cream eater, but this bracket has made me crave it, so today I tried Moose Tracks for the first time. This is what I learned: never eat Moose Tracks without a drink nearby. It’s soooo rich! I’ve felt sick for the past few hours…
Wow, I’m amazed, all my favorite flavors (Mint Chip, Cookie Dough, Vanilla) are still in and going up against stuff that I’m either meh about or actively hate (i.e. anything with peanut butter).
Is Michael Moore following the creamy controversy of the ice cream bracket?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cz2LSUfUauw
Check out his comment at the 3:15 mark.
@John – that’s pretty funny! And definitely not something I would have found on my own…
Cookie Dough FTW!