National Ice Cream Soda Day

Eds: in a parody of one of our favourite CBC Radio shows, “The Debaters“, Eva and Deanna take on the following question:

Is ice cream soda a VILE PUNISHMENT or a DELECTABLE TREAT?

[Eva posts first thing in the a.m.  Come back later for Deanna's reply, when she will defend the Ice Cream Soda after having one specially prepared for her at Devour.]

Eva: A vile punishment. We call it a “float” up here in Canada, by the way.

It’s the skungee foam on top that really gets me. I like ice cream. There’s a special place in my heart for it. You know I like “soda” or as we call it here in Canada, “pop” [aside: I was recently in the US and stopped at McDonald's to use the washroom. Still had a long drive ahead so, noticing it was a "serve yourself" joint, I ordered a small "fountain pop" from the girl behind the counter. Her response: "huh"? Um, a small soda, please? Oops.]

Anyway.

When I was in Grade 3 (“third grade” to you Americans – Terina!), we had floats at our Hallowe’en party. Mine was orange vanilla. They were probably all orange vanilla, come to think of it. I remember staring in horror at the curdled milk bits adorning the bubbles at the top of my float. “I’m sure it’s not meant to look like this”, I thought to my wee self. And yet all of my friends’ floats looked the same, and they were gulping them with glee.

I have to admit, at the age of 8 in Grade 3, I was impressionable. I was willing to force myself through an orange float if that’s what my friends were doing.

I will forever be haunted by the bright orange splash of vomit against the pure white snow drift on the way home from school. Milk, cream, ice cream: never meant to be carbonated. Especially in Orange Fanta.

That’s all. Ice cream floats are gross. If you want to know the history, look it up yourself. Some things should not be celebrated.

Deanna: GO TEAM DELECTABLE TREAT!!

So… um, I thought I had this one in the bag.

As mentioned by Eva, I had arranged for the expert help of Miss A, the lovely assistant at Devour who makes all of their amazing homemade ice creams and savoury sodas. Think lavender & mint seltzer and strawberry balsamic ice cream. This was going to be the foodies version of a float – no chemically smelling grape pop here.

Alas, when I got to Devour, Miss A had already disappeared home, apparently suffering from a memory lapse brought on by [alleged] hangover. There were no floats to be found.

Which leaves me with but one point in rebuttal: Eva does not eat bacon – and in matters of food, can you really trust someone who isn’t a shameless bacon eater? Clearly her judgement is DEEPLY impaired. Case closed. Victory to Team [Hypothetical] Delectable Treat!!!

 PS – the orange fanta you can get in Europe rocks my world.

National Chocolate Covered Anything Day

Anything you say?  Wow.  A person could have a lot of fun with that.  You could cover hockey pucks, dog kibble, cheese balls …

Ok, ok, ok.  I’ll be serious (sort of).  It’s not really a serious subject though.  Weird things abound in relation to this day.  For instance, if you go to the original website that started this blog, that being the American Food Holidays website, and click the link for National Chocolate Covered Anything Day, you get sent to a site called Screaming in Digital at which you will discover interesting tidbits like David “London” Ascoli (of Queensryche fame) died last month (oops – sorry for all you London fans out there if that was a little too brutal for you), or that someone named Chris DeGarmo is starting up production with a band named Dredg.  Strangely, despite its domain name (chocolate.scream.org), I didn’t see anything about chocolate.

Honestly, when you get the option to cover absolutely anything in chocolate, it is a little stymy-ing (is that a word?).  Despite my best intentions, I, of  course, managed not to plan very well (again) for this blog.  I have chocolate, but not really sure what to cover with it.  There’s bananas in the basket on top of my microwave – and my chocolate is dark, bittersweet – so it wouldn’t be too sweet.  Could work.  There’s also the frozen blueberries and strawberries in my freezer.  Also a good option.  Then there’s the problem of my missing Advent Calendar, which I am finding perplexing as well.  I know, at first blush that doesn’t exactly fit into this particular thoughtstream, but it’s about chocolate so it does.

Here’s the thing.  I’m not exactly a choc-o-holic (or is that chocaholic?)  It’s kinda like Eva, she of the non-sweet-tooth, being tasked with National Cupcake Day.  Given the choice between chocolate and almost any other dessert, I will almost always choose any other dessert.  Which is not to say that if chocolate is the only sweet available that I won’t eat it.  At my office, there often appear in the communal treat location various chocolatey treats, usually at about that time of the afternoon when you’re either going to eat some sugar or pass out on the floor under your desk.  So, of course, I eat them and have even begun to crave them – all of which has nothing to do with the chocolate and everything to do with (a) the opportunity to leave my desk for a few minutes, (b) the sugar, (c) the walk away from my desk, and (d) did I mention getting up to leave my desk?  As a result, I seem to have been mis-labelled by some of my co-workers as a chocolate freak!  How ironic.

But I digress.  I was supposed to cover something with chocolate and eat it, so I did.  I still had this delicious juicy orange left over from National Bouillabaise Day, so I sliced off the peel (and briefly considered candying the peel and then covering it with chocolate but decided against it on account of the likelihood of high pesticide levels), and sliced up my orange.  Then I used my microwave (yes! no double-boiler to wash) to melt some of the chocolate bar that my husband and child got me as a random gift a while ago (not because I’m a chocaholic, I assure you) and drizzled the chocolate overtop of the oranges.

Not only was it pretty, but it tasted pretty great too.  I used to think chocolate and orange was gross, but it’s actually not.  It was very very nice.

xoxo B.