ice cream – Life In A Word

Hat Trick

In the coastal village where my wife and I spend a couple of weeks each summer, a hat boutique has been converted into a gelato shop. An’s Hatmakers, paying homage to the location’s prior business, claims to be one of the top five gelato shops in America two years running. You’d believe it if you saw the line of twenty-plus patrons we joined to give it a try. But there’s more to this story than ice cream and headgear. In fact, you might call it something of a hat trick.

My wife and I have always been ice cream fanatics, so much so that we’ve banned any and all versions from our household freezer for fear of overindulging. I blame Häagen-Dazs, the brand that brought ice cream to a whole new level of quality (and butterfat) when it debuted in the 1970s. Today a pint of Haagen-Dazs sets you back $6-$7. That may seem like a lot until you consider places like An’s Hatmakers. A pint of An’s runs you twice that much.

Seriously, who pays $15 for a pint of ice cream? Apparently more people than the twenty-plus in line at An’s. Artisanal gelaterias and ice cream shops have been popping up online and on-street in numbers like we’ve never seen before. Baskin-Robbins and Coldstone Creamery won’t be threatened – especially with these eye-popping prices – but it may interest you to know the customer who buys at Baskins is the same one who buys at An’s.

It’s an oft-heard post-pandemic story. A person is unexpectedly pushed out of their corporate job by COVID. Exploring their inner-entrepreneur, this person combines something they have with something they’re good at and voila… a boutique business is born. I’ve just described A to Z Creamery in Minneapolis. A to Z was born in a home kitchen, from nothing more than an ice cream machine, a penchant for creating unique flavors, and a bit of online marketing. A to Z started as a “drop business” (filling orders online as they came in) but today they’re a thriving retail establishment. At $15 a pint.

$15 ice cream speaks to an interesting trend of economic tolerance. With prices through the roof on all sorts of items, it’s fair to say some of us can no longer afford (or no longer choose to pay for) the things we would’ve dropped big money on ten years ago. Maybe we forego a new car for a used one. Or an expensive trip for a stay-cation. As a reward for being frugal we may find ourselves with a little spending money. So we opt for “micro-indulgences” like overpriced gelato.

The pandemic also fostered more of a you-only-live-once (YOLO) attitude. We’re more about enjoying the moment instead of planning for the future. It’s the primary reason An’s and A to Z have lines of customers down the block. I’m reminded of the early years of our marriage, when my wife and I struggled with California’s high cost of living. We couldn’t afford the houses our Silicon Valley neighbors boasted so what did we do instead? We bought a luxury sedan we really had no business owning. But that car sure made us feel better.

Here at home, our little town hosts three ice cream shops. Each sells a perfectly good product. If you convert the cost of their scoops to pints (4:1), any one of them tops out at around $8. Which makes me think the next time I’m at An’s I’ll be buying a hat instead of gelato. After all, I want to have something I’ll eat if I ever spend $15 on ice cream.

Some content sourced from the KSL.com article, “What a $15 pint of ice cream says about the economy”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

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LEGO Neuschwanstein Castle – Update #4 (read about the start of this project in Fit for a (Fairy Tale) King)

Believe it or not, I wish King Ludwig built an even bigger castle. If he had maybe LEGO would’ve used bigger pieces for its model. Bags 7 and 8 (of 23 bags of pieces) contained some of the smallest bits of LEGO I’ve ever tried to get my fingers around. When I first spilled out the bags I let out a big sigh, not just for today’s construction but for the similar chapters sure to follow. After all, we’ve only built the Gatehouse and a portion of the lowest level of the castle so far. The finished structure will be about three times the height you see in the photo. That’s a lot more LEGO bits.

We built away from the main model today. Each bag represented a separate “module” of the castle like you see in this photo. When it’s complete you drop the whole assembly into the base. This sort of approach is possible with the cranes we use in modern construction but certainly not in Ludwig’s time. His builders would’ve been creating the castle one brick at a time. Regardless, at least we have the beginnings of the castle instead of just boring Bavarian Alps, right? The Gatehouse was the first part of the castle to be completed back in 1872, so credit LEGO for designing the model to be built in the same order.

Here’s what we started with today. Most of these LEGOs are seriously small.

As I searched for tiny piece after tiny piece today I got to thinking, “Man, it’d be nice to have an AI bot right now. This bot could consult the instruction manual, scurry over to the piles of LEGOs, and haul back exactly what I needed for each step. But hey, like a jigsaw puzzle the hunting for the pieces is (supposed to be) part of the fun. I just wish they were bigger than cake crumbs!

Running build time: 4:02.

Total leftover pieces: 28.

Accompanying movie soundtrack: Dances with Wolves (1990). No one should disagree Dances with Wolves is the crowning achievement of Kevin Costner’s film career. With it he won the Academy Award for Best Producer, Best Director, and was nominated for Best Actor. I’ll never forget a random hotel stay with my wife, where we turned on the television to Dances with Wolves just as it was starting. We’d never seen the movie before. Three hours later we sat speechless, having long missed our dinner reservation. John Barry’s scoring of the film also won the Oscar and is entirely deserving. Understandably – assuming you’ve seen the movie – the melodies are mostly haunting and forlorn, but the score is beautifully tied together time and again with the unforgettable theme music. Listen to it here.

Crop of the Cream

One of the essentials you’ll find in our refrigerator is a container of “half & half”. The 50/50 concoction of milk and light cream creates the perfect texture in our morning cup of coffee. Anything leaning more towards nonfat just doesn’t cut it for us. Earlier this week I noticed (with a wry smile) our half & half was parked right next to a tall, red can of Reddi Wip. Talk about your polar opposites. In the Jeopardy category of “Cream”, it doesn’t get much different.

Today’s topic is brought to you by the makers of Häagen-Dazs. My wife brought home a couple of containers of their ice cream the other night, and right after dinner I was eager to dig in. The little tubs were smaller than what I was used to but I figured it was a good way to curb consumption. After the first bite however, I realized something wasn’t quite right. Or maybe it was very right. Turns out, I was enjoying the coffee flavor of Häagen-Dazs’ “cultured crème”. In other words, yogurt instead of ice cream.

Häagen-Dazs describes its new product as “a unique blend of dairy cultures that offer a smoother taste experience unlike the slightly sour flavor of traditional yogurt.” Okay, that’s a mouthful (ha). It’s a tasty mouthful but it’s also just another spin on food products with creamy consistencies. We foodies are all about “mouth feel” aren’t we?

You probably have more cream-based products in your refrigerator/freezer than you realize. Go take a look. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn you also have a can of Reddi Wip (at least you Americans), as well as a tub of sour cream, several sticks of butter, several flavors of ice cream, and whatever version of “creamer” you prefer in your coffee.

Cream itself is, of course, the higher fat layer skimmed from the top of raw milk. It’s sold in several grades depending on the butterfat content. IMHO the Canadians have the most straightforward set of descriptors, as follows:

40% milk fat: manufacturing cream (not available as retail)
33-36%: whipped cream (for topping)
15-18%: table cream (for coffee)
10%: half and half (for cereal, sauces, and soups)
3-10%: light cream (lower-fat alternative to any of the above)

Other countries complicate the matter, but often for the better. The French have their crème fraîche, which belongs in the 40% category above and makes for a nice unsweetened topping on a very sweet dessert. The Swiss produce a “double cream” that hits closer to 45% and is probably as thick as yogurt. And the Brits are famous for their “clotted cream”, which tops the milk fat charts at 45% and spreads on a scone like butter.

Whether “cream” or “crème” (or even “crema”), the word enhances the appeal of a food product. Consider cream pie versus just “pie”. Cream puff instead of just “puff”. Want a cookie, or how about a cookie with cream filling? And anything with buttercream frosting – versus just “frosting” – is more decadent. Heck, I’d even try “plant cream” if you asked me to (the vegan spin on dairy).

For my money, any product with “Häagen-Dazs” printed on the label is worth a try. Their ice cream products are the cream of their crop but it’s safe to say I’ll be buying more of their cultured crème cups. Not a bad substitute for less healthy dessert options. And just the latest entry in the crop of the cream.

LEGO Notre-Dame de Paris – Update #10

(Read about the start of this “church service” in Highest Chair)

Roses are red, violets are… hang on, hang on; back up the truck. In Notre-Dame de Paris, roses are stained-glass windows. Bags 17 and 18… of 34 bags of pieces, focused almost entirely on the construction of the cathedral’s spectacular wheel-like windows. Today we worked away from the model to completely build two of the three roses, then installed them above the north and south walls of the cathedral’s transept. The LEGO versions aren’t nearly as intricate as the real windows but each one is still made up of thirty tiny pieces.

LEGO’s rose windows are necessarily simplified, but that’s not to take away from the craftsmanship of the windows in Notre-Dame de Paris. The transept roses are forty-two feet in diameter (about the width of a basketball court). The artwork of their dozens of panes of stained glass contains scenes from the life of Christ, the twelve apostles, as well as martyrs, virgins, angels, saints, and more. It’s a wonder these windows were created way back in the year 1250. It’s also a wonder they’ve lasted through wars and such, undamaged, for almost 800 years now.

Besides the rose windows, we added more structure to the rising walls of the nave today, the area on the left side of the photo covered in gray. I point this out because the sanctuary is getting more and more closed in as we anticipate more of the roof structure above. Lest I’m fooled into thinking we’re almost complete, the fact is we have another sixteen bags of pieces to go!

Running build time: 8 hrs. 58 min.

Total leftover pieces: 28

Some content sourced from the Häagen-Dazs Cultured Crème website, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Cream of the (Dessert) Crop

A week ago last Tuesday, Salt Lake City hosted its first ever drone show of “fireworks”, replacing the traditional explosives residents have come to expect over the downtown park. The drones create colorful shapes and animations in the sky – even giant words – as well as a pretty good impression of the blooms and starbursts of fireworks. But let’s be honest: drones don’t replace fireworks. The same can be said for the frozen treats aiming to be more popular than, say, a simple serving of ice cream.

On the heels of Independence Day, America has another celebration coming up. National Ice Cream Day is the third Sunday of July in our country (and July itself National Ice Cream Month!) The “holiday” was signed into public law in the mid-1980s when Congress apparently had nothing better to do. So how do you and I “celebrate” ice cream? No clue, other than a Google search to figure out where to get a free scoop. And if you think ice cream is a poor excuse for a holiday, consider, the first Saturday in February is Ice Cream for Breakfast Day… which pretty much confirms every day of the year is some sort of “Day”.

A stroll past the freezers of ice cream in any grocery store boasts an impressive variety of spins, including cones, sandwiches, pies, and bites. Ice cream is split by bananas, cherry-topped into sundaes, blended into shakes, cloaked as “gelato”, and even fried into crispy-covered bites. I ask you, who buys all this stuff? Sure, as a kid I had a thing for Eskimo Pies (because my mom bought them) and later on I ate my share of Dove Bars (because my dad loved them). But feet to the fire, I’d rather spend my pennies on the best version of plain ol’ ice cream. I have my favorite brand (and you have yours) and time and again it ends up in my grocery cart instead of any of those other treats.

For a few years there I got caught up in the Cold Stone Creamery concept, where your serving of ice cream is placed on a marble slab and combined with “mix-in’s”. It was (still is) a trendy take on ice cream. But after just a few visits I realized the draw was the mix-in’s more than the ice cream. Safe to say Cold Stone doesn’t use a brand of ice cream anyone would consider “gourmet”. They know what brings people through the doors: marble slabs and mix-in’s. Cold Stone’s rival is even named Marble Slab.

For anyone growing up on the West Coast in the 1970s, the one-on-every-corner ice cream parlor was Baskin-Robbins. Their ever-changing selection of thirty-one flavors guaranteed slow perusing, even if the final choice was vanilla or rocky road nine times out of ten (okay, I’ll grant you peanut-butter-and-chocolate too). Today, Baskin-Robbins is still going strong, but I think most people prefer the flavors of whatever local parlor is closest to their house. And let it be said for the millionth time: Vanilla is and will always be the king of ice cream flavors. Simple, delicious, and versatile.

As for the commercial brands in grocery store freezers, Dreyer’s “Grand Ice Cream” is trying very hard to make its offerings your favorite. They smartly purchased www.icecream.com and dressed up the website as a tribute to ice cream, but let’s be real: they’re just pushing their own products here. My favorite brand is still Haagen-Dazs but get this: Haagen-Dazs is now a subsidiary of Dreyer’s. Whoa. Give it a few more years and Dreyer’s may turn into the Amazon of ice cream.

If you like to spend big on ice cream like I do (Haagen-Dazs is not inexpensive!) you might consider Cellato, a brand from Japan. Cellato makes particularly fragrant gelatos, mixing in white and black truffles from Italy, champagne, and caviar. Their “white night” flavor is topped with an edible gold leaf, two exquisite cheeses, and a sake-like paste. The price of a single serving? $6,380 USD, making it the most expensive ice cream in the world. Might as well make the airplane seat to Japan first-class for a dessert like that.

In closing, a very happy National Ice Cream Day to you! However you choose to celebrate this Sunday, you don’t need Cellato. You don’t need Coldstone Creamery either. For me, the entire ice cream aisle at the grocery store might as well be reduced to the Haagen-Dazs flavors. Those, and the choices at my local ice cream parlor satisfy my craving. In other words, forget about the drones. Traditional fireworks will always be better.

Some content sourced from the CNN Travel article, “Don’t drop it: World’s most expensive ice cream costs $6,400”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

A Month of Sundaes

I seem to have an affection for the hyphen. The humble horizontal line appears regularly in my posts. The “dash” is more formal than the “dot-dot-dot” yet more relaxed than the semi-colon – perfect for blog pauses, don’t you agree? My hyphen habit may be the result of formative moments in my life, like Hanna-Barbera cartoons (hello, Yogi Bear) and Hewlett-Packard, where I worked most of my professional career. But if I had to pick just one – or should I say, thirty-one, I’d go with my favorite hyphen of them all. Baskin-Robbins.

The next time I write a post, remind me to have something to eat before I sit down to the keyboard. My last four entries cover graham crackers, doughnuts, waffles, and now ice cream. Might be my anticipation of Easter Sunday (when my Lenten sweets sacrifice comes to an end). Bring on the jellybeans, Peter Rabbit! But today is about ice cream – and not just any. It’s about the one you grew up with; the one you still identify with. For me, it’ll always be Baskin-Robbins.

“B-R”, as they’re now called, has a quaint beginning worth a few sentences here. Burt Baskin and Irv Robbins got into the ice cream business independent of each other. Then Burt married Irv’s sister. The now brothers-in-law decided to combine “Burton’s Ice Cream Shop” (10 flavors) with Irv’s “Snowbird Ice Cream” (21 flavors), and there you have it – the birth of “31 Flavors”. B-R was a single shop back in 1948; today, how about 8,000 parlors in 50 countries? Their new slogan – Seize the yay – has more to do with “celebrating small, joyous moments” than ice cream. Even the rebranded logo removes the nostalgia of the B-R I grew up with (though the embedded “31” is clever). But I get it – B-R needs to appeal to younger generations as well.

Baskin-Robbins is inextricably tied to my childhood memories. Our local B-R was one door over from my mother’s hair salon. It was also right down the street from our church. So ice cream for me was often the reward of patience with Mom or simply going to church with Dad, who often couldn’t resist a stop at B-R on the way home. You could always find a container of B-R Rocky Road in Dad’s freezer, all the way up to the last day of his life. He was fond of saying while he enjoyed a bowlful, “Nothing beats Baskin-Robbins’ Rocky Road.” (I beg to differ with B-R’s Peanut Butter ‘n’ Chocolate, but hey, we all have our favorites).

A lot of my posts mention ice cream yet I’ve only mentioned Baskin-Robbins once in all my blogging (in The Sweets Life three years ago). Kind of a crime there because B-R deserves a post of its own, as does your favorite ice cream parlor. Wikipedia has an article called List of Ice Cream Parlor Chains (of course they do). Your favorite is on that list. I may be partial to B-R but I’m familiar with several others, including Braum’s in Oklahoma and Texas, Carvel to the Northeast, Farrell’s to the West, and Lappert’s in Hawaii.

Of course, with Baskin-Robbins I’m talking “ice-cream-parlor ice cream”. Back at home, you won’t find any B-R in our freezer because Häagen-Dazs (ice cream) and Talenti (gelato) earn the shelf space instead. H-D goes a whole lot higher on the butterfat scale so naturally it tastes better. H-D even has a hyphen! And Talenti, well, it’s gelato. Need I say more?

If you live in a bigger city than me, you have better ice cream options than Baskin-Robbins. Big cities have wonderful local places (follow Lyssy in the City for some of the best in New York). But do they have hyphens? Mine does (as does this post – 48 if I counted correctly). Yes, B-R may be updating its brand, but I’ll always insert the rainbow-sprinkle “dash” between the initials, returning me to those ice-cream parlor memories of old.

Some content sourced from the CNN Business article, “This 77-year-old ice cream chain is getting a makeover”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

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Lego Grand Piano – Update #13

(Read about how this project got started in Let’s Make Music!)

We passed the ten-hour mark with the build today, which amounts to a very long piano concerto. (Good thing you’re not being asked to sit and watch, eh?) Bag #13 – of 21 bags of pieces – added another five keys to the board for a total of fifteen. Eight more next week will complete the entire set. Maybe we’ll be installing them into the piano as well!

Here’s a stop-sign warning if you take on a project like this. Pieces can easily be installed backwards. For all my “practice” building keys these past few weeks, I got a few tiny pieces reversed today and had to disassemble to make things right. Mr. Instruction Manual includes warning-like diagrams to make sure you don’t do this. In other words, the piano student must pay attention at all times!

Running Build Time: 10.2 hours. Musical accompaniment: Strauss’s The Blue Danube waltz. Leftover pieces: 3

Conductor’s Note: The Blue Danube is familiar from the very first bars (especially if you saw 2001: A Space Odyssey and remember the scene with the rotating space station). Strauss was fond of waltzes and this one is his most famous. With its repeating theme, I thought The Blue Danube would be appropriate this time around since I’ve been building key after key after key.

Ice Cream Dreams

Before our vacation in South Carolina last week, I took measures to ensure I was fully prepared for the low country’s late-May heat and humidity. I packed a reliable SPF 30 sunscreen. I purchased a couple of bottles of spray-on insect repellant. I added several hats to the wardrobe. I even brought a USB-chargeable mini-fan, which hangs around the neck, operates at three speeds, and adjusts to just the right angle. But guess what? I didn’t need any of these items in South Carolina last week (for the weather gods were merciful). Instead, I should’ve left it all at home and just brought my bed.

South Carolina is nicknamed “The Palmetto State”

Is it me getting older or can we all agree on the exceptional value of a good night’s sleep? For me, it’s a day of brain fog if I don’t get a quality 7.5 hours in la-la land the night before. When I’m up past midnight (which is never my intention), I know I’m going to pay dearly at 7am the next morning. Because, I wake up without fail (and without alarm clock) every morning at 7am. Even if I don’t hit the hay until 3am.

Stay in a hotel – any hotel – and after one night you’re reminded how the circumstances of quality sleep are frustratingly beyond your control. My wife and I booked a charming historic inn our first night last week, and what-do-you-know, our bed was just as historic. The seemingly elegant four-poster contained a lumpy mattress with a few squeaky springs, and a decided slope from my side of the bed to my wife’s. Throw in the two-hour time change and we tossed and turned like a washing machine’s most violent agitation cycle.

The second day we drove over to Charleston (half asleep), where you’d think a Courtyard-by-Marriott room would deliver the Z’s just a little bit better. No such luck. Our fifth-floor corner space included two windows with not-so-blackout curtains. Our first night’s sleep was interrupted by the hotel fire alarm, triggered because one of the elevators malfunctioned. The rest of our night’s sleeps were interrupted by the several amped-up bachelorettes and wedding parties resident in the hotel. Finally, we were adjacent to the fire exit stairs, with a bangy access door used constantly… because of the malfunctioning elevator.

Once upon a time, I was happy just to afford a bed to sleep in. But over the years I’ve developed a respect for the crucial elements of quality sleep. A comfortable mattress is worth the max you can afford to pay. A mattress where you can raise/lower the head and foot is even better. Make the room pitch black (which in our case includes a small piece of cardboard to block the fireplace pilot flame). Adjust the temp to the high sixties °F. Invest in a white noise machine. And table the electronic devices and alcohol several hours before bedtime.

If there was a plus side to my Charleston sleep, it was this. We discovered a very good ice cream place within walking distance of the hotel. Don’t know about you but ice cream does wonders for my sleep. Specifically, my dreams. Maybe it’s the sugar or maybe it’s just the late-night munchies, but I’m guaranteed all kinds of REM-sleep adventures when I’ve had ice cream. Some are haunted-house scary, others earn a movie-theater R-rating, and still others are a jumbled hodgepodge of individual memories making no sense when thrown together. Whatever the subject, my ice cream dreams are a ton of fun. They also disappear from memory as fast as the ice cream did the night before. I’m not one of those who greet you at breakfast with, “You’re not gonna believe what I dreamed about last night!” Because I’ve already forgotten.

Dreams are the topic of an entire post and alas, I’ve already used up my typical word count this time around. But let me leave you with some dreamy trivia. The average person enjoys three to five dreams a night. Like me, most people quickly forget their dreams the moment they wake up. Dreams last longer as the night progresses. The older you get, the less you dream. Finally, for all we know about the brain, we know next to nothing about dreaming.

I can’t fit a bed in my suitcase so I already know the next time I travel means quality sleep stays behind. But maybe I’ll pack a little ice cream on dry ice. If I can’t get my usual dose of Z’s, the least I can do is enjoy a forgettable sweet dream or two.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Save the Bowl

Back in the 1980’s, Hollywood produced an awful movie called “The Stuff”. The story began with a couple of miners discovering a pasty-white goo pouring forth from the earth. Giving it a taste, they realized it was not only edible, but the more you ate the more you seemed to want. So, they package the goo, brand it “The Stuff”, and begin selling cartons to the masses. Turns out – besides tasting good – “The Stuff” melts your brain, turns you into a zombie, and leaves you with nothing but an insatiable appetite for more. That’s the entire comedy-horror plot, save for an FBI agent and a teen trying desperately to rescue the planet. “The Stuff” was like a light/airy “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”: no taste and little substance.

Even a “distasteful” movie can be a prophecy, however. Maybe you’re craving “The Stuff” after reading that paragraph. Guess what? It just may exist, disguised as the pint-sized “ice cream” products from Halo Top, Arctic Zero, Enlightened, and others. All available this very minute at your local grocery store! What are you waiting for?

Halo Top (HT) is – in one aspect – the dream dessert. Halo Top is a full pint of ice cream (per the label – four servings), engineered to be consumed straight from the container in one sitting, but with none of the guilt/gluttony associated with full-fat competitors. HT can’t hide its pride – the biggest lettering on the container is the calories (just 280 for the whole pint; 25% of Ben & Jerry’s), while elsewhere the packaging promotes immediate and total consumption with slogans like “save the bowl” and “stop when you hit the bottom”.

On the other hand, Halo Top is not dream-tasty. Some describe HT as “shaved ice” while others say it leaves a chalky aftertaste (hello, stevia). The chocolate-chip cookie dough has very little “dough”, and the cookies-and-cream has no cookies. Every review I found recommends time at room temperature to achieve a more ice-cream-like consistency. On a recent visit to the grocery store, I “hefted” one of these pints. It was hard as a rock, yet somehow so light/airy it felt like a little helium balloon, ready to ascend from my grasp.

Here’s the real wonder to me: none of the above gotchas stop consumers from filling their baskets with Halo Top pints. Last year’s sales were over $350 million, a 500% increase from the previous year. In the same time, “regular” ice cream sales increased less than 10%. As one consumer declares, it’s a brave new world of ice cream – quantity over quality.

What I find most disturbing about Halo Top and its peers is the manufacturer’s intent. They’re effectively encouraging you to clean your plate by design. Four servings make more sense than one because you should eat the whole pint. Whether you’ve already quenched your appetite is irrelevant; it’s about getting to the bottom of the container. Arctic Zero claims “…our love of ice cream runs deep, like eat-the-entire-pint-deep.” Enlightened even offers how-often guidelines. In their website FAQ’s, we’re told ice cream is not just for dessert: “Not at all! Low in calories, fat, and sugar, and packed with protein and fiber, Enlightened Ice Cream is truly good for you. It can be enjoyed at breakfast, lunch, and dinner… or anytime in between!”

Let’s translate the “more is better” concept to the movie theater. If we drop the guilt factor from junk-food concessions, we could sell popcorn in containers the size of trash cans. Soda could be hosed to each theater seat for hours of non-stop slurping (restroom logistics aside). String licorice could be coiled on floor-mounted reels. M&M’s could be the size of hamburgers.

We’ve just about come full-circle here. If all of us binge on Halo Top, honing our full-container consumption habits for breakfast lunch, dinner, “and anytime in between”, haven’t we created a modern-day version of “The Stuff”? All that’s missing is the magic ingredient in Starbucks and Chinese food that triggers “I want more”. As for me, I’ve never tried any of the products I’ve talked about today, nor do I intend to. I’d rather not become a zombie.

Some content sourced from the Wall Street Journal article “Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop…“.