50

For the last five years of my life, I've had a little obsession with ice cream. It started the year I turned 17 when I spent a summer in San Francisco at art school. I didn't really spend much time paying attention in class or really making much art as I recall. When I think about San Francisco I really just remember laughing with my roommates, chasing boys, and eating good food.

shamelessly stolen from googlmaps

Between classes I usually didn't have more than an hour to find a place and eat so once I found Specialty's Cafe and Bakery I pretty much stuck to it. It was  right across the street from my Film class and in my memory it was a bakery but I don't remember them having more than cupcakes, cookies and cream sodas. Maybe because that's all I ever ate there.

also from googlemaps

Epplers Bakery is another place that stands out in my mind because they had the most delicious chocolate cake I've ever had in my life. No exaggeration needed I have yet to encounter (here five years later) another slice of cake that comes anywhere near what I tasted there. And the slices were as big as your head too. I used to get a slice on Sunday and make it last through the week. That cake was heaven, and if one day I ever make it back to San Fransisco it would be my pleasure t curl up with that cake and happily die.

Mostly though, when the sun set, the boys were chasing other girls, and I'd finished pretending to do my homework, I'd usually find a friend to go with me and wander around the corner to the Liquor Store/little quicky mart and buy some Ben & Jerry's.  It was pretty much the first time in my life that I had been anywhere that you could buy this decadent concoction. To me, little pint sized fancy ice creams were something that people ate in movies, in fact the only other place that I had ever even seen Ben & Jerry's in real life was when I was in New York for four days with my aunt (I was 15 and it was the biggest thrill of my life). And I tell you the second I saw it, I knew I had to buy it. The flavor was Pistachio Pistachio and I ate it for breakfast every single day we were there.

And now, here I was again in a big city and I swear to god this little quicky mart seemed to sell only beer, bananas and every flavor of Ben & Jerry's legally sold in the U.S. It was unreal. I remember staring at the freezer wide eyed plotting to try every single flavor before I had to leave this fattening utopia and go back home.I tried 12 flavors before I left for Nashville and later that fall, through the grace of god, my local grocery store started carrying Ben & Jerry's too. And there, that moment is when the sickness began.

At this point any time I'm anywhere outside my regular shopping area I'll check the freezer section of just about anyplace to see if they have a flavor I haven't tried yet. And like a freak of nature I have been keeping track all this time of each flavor. Which brings me to the purpose of this post. I have ladies and gentlemen reached a personal milestone, today, after trying both Pumpkin Cheesecake and Carrot Cake, I have officially tasted 50 flavors. If there was every any doubt of my foodie status, I think this display should pretty much prove my dedication.

1. American Pie
2. Americone Dream
3. Banana Split
4. Boston Cream Pie
5. Brownie batter
6. Carrot Cake
7. Cherry Garcia
8. Cherry Garcia {Body and Soul}
9. Chocolate chip cookie dough
10. Chocolate fudge brownie
11. Chocolate Fudge Brownie {Body and Soul}
12. Chocolate therapy
13. Chubby Hubby
14. Chunky Monkey
15. Cinnamon Buns
16. Coconut chocolate chunk
17. Dave Mathews Band magic brownies
18. Dublin Mudslide
19. Everything but the?
20. Fossil Fuel
21. Fudge central
22. Half Baked {Body and Soul}
23. Imagine Whirled Peace
24. In a Crunch
25. Jamaican Me Crazy
26. Karamel Sutra
27. Marsha Marsha marshmallow
28. Milk And Cookies
29. Mint Chocolate Chunk
30. Mint Chocolate Cookie
31. Mud Pie
32. Neapolitan Dynamite
33. New York super fudge chunk
34. Oatmeal cookie chunk
35. One Cheesecake Brownie
36. Peanut Butter Cup
37. Phish food
38. Pistachio Pistachio
39. Pumpkin Cheesecake
40. Strawberry Cheesecake
41. Sweet Cream & Cookie
42. S’mores
43. The Gobfather
44. Triple Caramel Chunk
45. Turtle Soup
46. Uncanny Cashew
47. Vanilla
48. Vanilla Heath bar crunch
49. Vermonty Python
50. Willie Nelson’s Country Peach Cobbler

I don't really know if I should be proud at this point but boys, you've stuck with me through diets, breakups, and though marathons. So Ben, Jerry, here's to another 50, it's been a wild ride.