Ice cream catch up (not ice cream and ketchup!)

It's been a long time since I talked about ice cream here, but I wanted to record some of my thoughts, if only for my own record keeping purposes. Just as I did in the beginning, this is going to be a catch-up post that gives my strong impressions on various flavors as they come into my head. I think I'll go brand-by-brand to make things easy on myself.

Turkey Hill: I have an all-time new favorite ice cream flavor-- Turkey Hill's Double Dunker. It's coffee ice cream with crumbled-up bits of chocolate chip and Oreo cookies, along with a chocolate cookie stripe. I'm usually only so-so about coffee ice cream flavors, but this is divine, and stripe is especially addictive.

Deluxe: I told you I'd never had a good batch of Deluxe ice cream, but we finally found a flavor we love: chocolate cookie crumble. It consists of chocolate ice cream with a chocolate cookie stripe much like the one that Turkey Hill uses in Double Dunker. It's definitely the best thing I've ever had from Deluxe.

Edy's : I broke my rule of never buying Edy's ice cream because I found a flavor actually available in the old Grand line instead of the new Fun Flavors one: rocky road. I found out after I got it home and did some research that Edy's is the originator of this flavor, and then my expectations were even higher. Unfortunately, I didn't like it at all. There were too many nuts for me, and the texture of the marshmallows was very strange. The others who live in my household felt the same way, and we actually argued over who had to eat it whenever we had ice cream!

I also tried a couple more flavors of Edy's frozen yogurt. Strawberry was so-so, and I wouldn't buy it again. I see now that it has been discontinued, and it doesn't really surprise me. Chocolate fudge brownie was actually pretty good, and cookies and cream was also something I could live with.

Breyer's: Recently I was hankering for neopolitan, and since Breyer's was on sale I got their vanilla, chocolate, strawberry. (Why not just call it neopolitan? It would be much easier to type!) I know I've said in the past that Breyer's is good no matter what the flavor, but sadly, this was a miss for me. All the flavors seemed extremely weak, especially the strawberry. I think I won't buy this in the future.

A flavor we had more luck with was waffle cone. It has vanilla ice cream with pieces of chocolate-covered waffle cone, a caramel ribbon, and mini chocolate chips. I thought it was merely acceptable, finding the caramel to taste a little bit burnt and the whole product too sweet, but my fiance really liked it. (I notice now when looking at the ingredients that it also contains the dreaded propylene glycol. Breyer's, I'm surprised at you. Grrr!)

Blue Bunny: Since I hardly ever go to Wal-mart, it had been a long time since I'd had any Blue Bunny ice cream, but I got a great flavor recently: double strawberry. It has huge chunks of great-tasting strawberries and a nice flavor overall. We'll definitely be getting this one again.

Fall 2011 preview

Last week was the 2011 Upfronts, and the excitement of hearing about all the new TV shows for next season was enough to bring me out of my long silence! As usual, I'll tell you my picks for each time period of the week.

Monday

8:00-- We've been waiting a whole year for Fox's sci-fi show Terra Nova, and here's hoping it'll be worth the wait. In case you've been living under a rock and haven't read any of the numerous articles about it, it's about people from the near future who travel back in time to colonize the past-- Earth at the time of the dinosaurs. It'll either be fabulous or horrible; we'll have to wait and see to find out which one.

9:00-- A new show in this time period is Hart of Dixie, in which a doctor from New York sets up practice in a small town in Alabama. Of course this premise has been done a million times before, but it's exactly the kind of thing I've liked, so I'm willing to go along for the ride again.

10:00-- Castle returns in this time slot. Also, a new show I'm dying to see is The Playboy Club, which takes us back to the swinging '60's. I'm not totally convinced I'll love it from the previews, but I'm tantalized enough to know I have to give it a try.

Tuesday

8:00-- Glee, of course!

9:00-- The New Girl stars Zooey Deschanel and looks cute and quirky. After that at 9:30 I'll be watching Raising Hope, which turned out to be a much better show than I gave it credit for last year. There's also a possibility that I'll tune in to Ringer, starring Sarah Michelle Geller as twins who are both on the run from the bad guys. I'm not entirely sure it's my cup of tea, but since I like the actress I may feel compelled to give it a try.

10:00-- Body of Proof turned out to be much better than I expected, given that ABC held it until the very end of the season. I'm glad to see it'll be returning for another year. There's also a somewhat generic-looking new procedural on CBS called Unforgettable. The hook here is a detective who has perfect recall. I'm not convinced, but it's been getting a lot of buzz.

Wednesday

8:00-- I'll be watching The Middle. I'm also somewhat curious about Up All Night, starring Christina Applegate and Will Arnett as the parents of a newborn.

8:30-- Two new shows in this slot, and I can't decide which one to be more excited about. Suburgatory is about a father and daughter who move from the big city to the suburbs, while Free Agents is an office romance about people who work in a talent agency.

9:00-- Modern Family.

9:30-- A new show in this slot is I Hate My Teenage Daughter. I didn't think much of it from the previews, but may give it a try the first week or two.

10:00-- Revenge is a show about a girl who returns to her wealthy hometown to get vengeance on the people who ruined her family in the past. It looks fairly turgid; I'll be watching solely because of my love for Emily van Camp.

Thursday

8:00-- Vampire Diaries.

9:00-- Secret Circle is sort of a companion show to the above about teen witches.

Friday

8:00-- Chuck. Also getting a lot of buzz in this hour is A Gifted Man, about a man who can communicate with the ghost of his dead wife. I didn't expect to like it, but the preview drew me in.

9:00-- Fringe.


Sunday

8:00-- Once Upon a Time is the story of a woman who moves to a town where all the locals have alternate identities as fairy tale characters. It sounds intriguing.

9:00-- The Good Wife has been moved to this slot, somewhat of a problem because CBS always has long football overruns on Sunday nights. I guess I'll be watching this one live at a different time every week. Oh well, at least I won't have to get up for work on Monday morning!

10:00-- Pan Am is another show that takes us back to the swinging sixties, but this time with stewardesses. I preferred this one in the previews.