What is my favorite food?
This is an easy one. Ice cream!
To be specific, vanilla ice cream.
I have begun to bemoan the use of vanilla to describe something as plain or bland. While I understand the connotation, I feel compelled to defend my most beloved ice cream flavor. Vanilla is neither bland nor boring.
Vanilla ice cream – at its best – is like a fine wine: beautiful, subtle, incredibly textured, and enticing. Great vanilla is not to be confused with vanilla that is good enough or just a base for other things. Mock me all you want, but great vanilla ice cream needs no embellishment.
When it comes to vanilla ice cream, I’m a purist. I don’t want any chocolate chips or caramel swirls in it. I would never dream of putting any sprinkles or nuts on it. I want my vanilla ice cream unadorned.
Technically, I suppose ice cream is a desert rather than food. It is an ingestible product though. Therefore, I categorize it as food. If someone told me I had to pick one thing to eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the rest of my life. I would pick ice cream. Vanilla. Plain vanilla. Oh, what an exciting thought.
