I’ve never really been one to eat very well.  Vegetables are only recently making an appearance in my diet as I discover the beauty of sauteed zucchini and summer squash with red onions, wild mushrooms and a whole lot of garlic (thanks Mom!).  Ever since working at Jaleo I’ve had an affinity for sauteed spinach with apples, raisins and pine nuts.  And I am proud to say that my son (2 years old in a week) loves vegetables, could eat them all day!  That must have skipped a maternal generation because my mother is the only person he could have gotten that from.  My daughter, on the other hand, is a different story all together.  Luckily (or maybe not) she succumbs to peer pressure and will eat well if other kids are eating well.  Hhhmmm…could we replicate that?  We could start a revolution based on peer pressure to do good things instead of bad…hhmm!???  But despite my new found love affair (ok slight exaggeration) with vegetables I still need my ICE CREAM fix on a pretty regular basis.  Maybe that’s why I haven’t been able to quite shed my 2nd baby weight…one day!  So to all you mom’s out there, and dad’s too, go ahead and have ICE CREAM for dinner whenever you want.  I won’t tell:)!

Ice cream on a roti…amazing amazing unique twist on traditional ice cream sundaes, found at Twisted Noodle in Durham, NC.

Fabulous end to fabulous meal.

My friend Sally graciously shared two fabulous homemade soups…in ice cream bowls!

Even my taste buds have matured. Whereas I used to have a palate of a sophisticated 5-year old…the day I hit 31, my taste buds made leaps and bounds to that of a 10-year old.

If it’s too sour, bitter, tart…not going to eat it. I know – for someone who loves food, it might sound strange to you that I don’t care much for “sophisticated” flavors such as vinegar, olives, beer, pickles, wine…

…vegetables like arugula and artichokes and bitter melon (it has the word bitter IN its name – not a good marketing strategy). It drove my parents mad for years. I didn’t start eating them until I turned 31.

To this day, I only eat salads on rare occasions because: 1) they often sneak in some bitter leafy thing, and 2) they often lather it with vinegar, which make me look like this:

Case in point: my search for the perfect yogurt for me.

I love milk. I love ice cream. I love cheese. Dairy is my companion. I’m not talking light, sugar free, skim stuff. I drink the whole fat version. These days, my obsession is the glass bottles from Maple View Farm – red-caps signaling wholesome, creamy deliciousness.

I also knew yogurt was good for you, and so wanted to develop a healthy relationship with it. In elementary school, my cool friends would whip out little containers of Yoplait or Danon, looking like little models swirling their yogurt and flipping their hair. I tried to develop a romance then with yogurt, but perhaps I was too immature, perhaps yogurt wasn’t ready. Those yogurts were simply too sour for me. I chocked it up to the follies of youth.

(this was an ad campaign in Ireland)

As I got older, I really, really wanted to meet a yogurt that was right for me. I figured yogurt was a healthier way to start the day (Starbuck’s breakfast sandwiches DO rock, but they are the dangerous type that you go out with once or twice a month, but not good for a long-term thing). I was becoming desperate – for over two decades, I tried a new brand of yogurt several times a year in search of the One.

I thought I found it when I tried Activia. The commercials said it would regulate my digestive system, and I found it quite pleasing. However, a few things bothered me. Activia was a little too sweet for me and I wished it was organic since I had switched to organic milk and cheese. It was a nice relationship, but not my perfect match.

Was I too picky?

When I was living in Manhattan (perfect place for the single gal looking for…yogurt), I became mesmerized by the fancy organic brands that lined the shelves. They beckoned me, and I gladly parted with my money to get a taste. All talk and no substance. Sour. Sour. Sour.

I became cozy with Brown Cow, which was quite smooth and gentle. However, as time wore on, I realized I was adding more and more granola to cut out the hint of sourness. Eventually, I just ended up with a cup of dry granola and a dollop of yogurt. That was no real relationship.

I gave up for a while, decided to swear off yogurt. Mind you, I am not knocking any of these brands. I think they are lovely and many of you probably love them because they ARE good. The issue is not them. It’s me. It’s my immature taste buds.

But then, as they say – when you are not looking…. One day, I was in the store, talking to ZomppaPatty about my dysfunctional relationship with yogurt. I told her about this post I saw from my new foodblog friend, Healthy Tasty Chow, about YoBaby. Healthy Tasty Chow seemed to like it, ZomppaPatty seemed to like it. Okay, I recognize that they liked the yogurt…for their BABIES, but I figured if this yogurt was good to babies and cute small things and cute small babies liked IT, it must be worth a try.

So I did.

Smooth, made with whole milk, sweet but not too sweet, organic, clear fresh flavors that don’t intimidate but still announces its presence, good on its own, the perfect size.

YoBaby is the One for me.

I have not done any form of exercise in four weeks nor do I pretend. I sweat by just standing outside, so I figured that is enough to balance out my two ice creams a day. Ahmedabad has the BEST ice cream. In fact, Ahmedabad is also know as the Ice Cream city.

One of my favorites is the Choco Tang from HavMoor. I tend to have this as my ice cream dessert after my ice cream appetizer (a smaller cup). It is: Orange Tang with choco crispy cereals and orange gummies, topped with whipped cream and hot fudge. Yes, it’s that good. It costs Rs. 60, about $1.20 or so.

Ice cream parlors and stands abound – HavMoor is a wonderful local one that serve the best flavors (why do I have their menu?), E-Scoops is terrific, and there is the Baskin Robbins as well. Best of all – they all DELIVER.

The flavors here are so unique and flavorful, and I wish they had more of this in the U.S. One of my favorites is Orange Tang (remember Tang commercials from the 80s?). I am a sucker for orange and cream, and Orange Tang just rocks (upper left). Other flavors more unique to India is the Kesar Pista (upper right) – saffron and pistachios – YUM – and the lychee (or litchee here) and caramel (bottom left). I’m drooling as I write this. On campus, they serve ice cream from a big box, so not as fancy, yet even the florescent pink concoction (bottom right, this photo doesn’t do it justice) is a terrific strawberry.

One of the best ice cream-ish treats in India, however, is kulfi, a special milk-based dessert that is not whipped, so it does not melt as quickly as ice cream, and is solid and dense, more like a custard. It is supreme. The Malai Kulfi is one of my favorites. It tastes like a super rich Godiva Dulce de Leche, but dare I say it, better?

I found a recipe online on this site by Tarla Dalal and just had to pass it along (recipe below can be found in her book):

MALAI KULFI

A fuss free, easy to make kulfi recipe. You won’t have to slave in the kitchen for hours to reduce the milk. The condensed milk and milk powder thicken it and gives it a delicious creamy consistency.

Preparation Time : 5 mins.
Cooking Time : 15 mins.

Makes 4 kulfis.
Ingredients
2½ cups (500 ml.) full fat milk
½ cup condensed milk
¼ cup milk powder
½ teaspoon cardamom (elaichi) powder
Method

1. Combine all the ingredients together and bring to a boil. Add the cardamom powder.

2. Simmer for 10 minutes till the mixture thickens. Cool completely.

3. Pour into 4 kulfi moulds and freeze overnight till firm.

4. To unmould, allow the moulds to remain outside the refrigerator for 5 minutes and then unmould by inserting a wooden skewer, stick or a fork, in the centre of the kulfi and pulling it out.

In addition to the preschooler whose second cousin is the Tasmanian Devil, I have a baby, under the age of 1.  Technically, she isn’t supposed to eat dairy products, but we got a little confession to make.  Baby loves herself some ICE CREAM SANDWICH!!

After the kiddies wake up from their afternoon naps, we always have some kind of snack.  On occasion, we three will sit on my living room floor (usually in only our underwear or diaper and over sized T-shirts…yes, me too) and share an ice cream sandwich.  Deliciousness.

So, it isn’t the healthiest snack (or even permitted for baby), but at least it’s an organic ice cream sandwich!  Joke, joke.  I fully understand that ‘organic’ isn’t necessarily synonymous with ‘healthy’ eating.  If that were the case, I’d look like Skelator or Kate Moss from the early ‘90s.

But sometimes, it is a definite OK in my house to enjoy a special treat.  When I open the freezer, the kiddies start to jump up and down in and around my feet.  Watching them perform the ‘happy dance’, clap their hands and screech ‘yeeaaahhhh!!!!’ is definitely worth eating the ‘forbidden fruit’ and its 8 grams of unrelenting fat and delectable creaminess.