Simplicity. I prize it above almost all other things.
Live an uncomplicated life, and you’ll have more time for the important things. For this reason, I try to limit my choices whenever possible so that my time and energy can be devoted to other, more important matters.
I wear the same thing onstage whenever I perform.
I wear the same pair of sneakers every single day.
I eat the same breakfast and almost the same lunch every day.
I shop in the same grocery store every time.
The same holds true for ice cream. I’ve identified six kinds of ice cream that I like a lot:
Chocolate. Strawberry. Cookie dough. Mint chocolate chip. Ben & Jerry’s Karamel Sutra Core and Strawberry Cheesecake.
I’m sure there are other delicious flavors in the world (and I’ve even tasted some of them), but these six are delicious. Why risk ruining a visit to the ice cream shop by trying a less-than-ideal flavor?
I made this mistake this summer, deciding to give a shop’s fat free, sugar free option a try. I tasted a tiny spoonful and was surprised to discover how good it was, so I ordered a whole scoop on a cone.
Turns out it was only good in tiny amounts. I lamented my decision for the entire visit.
Which brings me to the latest flavor of ice cream to come out of a Scottish ice cream shop:
Yes, it’s true that alongside Ranch dressing and pickles, mayonnaise is my least favorite substance on earth.
And yes, it’s true that just about everyone on the planet agrees that this is a vile and disgusting decision on the part of the ice cream shop.
But even if all of that wasn’t true, did we really need another flavor?
A couple summers ago, Elysha took me to a Momofuku, a shop that sells ice cream that tastes like the milk at the bottom of a sugary cereal bowl.
I hated it.
As a kid, I loved slurping up the last bit of sugary milk from the bottom of the bowl, but cereal milk atop an ice cream cone?
No thank you. Too damn sweet and not how and where I want my cereal milk to reside.
Someone recently told me about bacon-flavored ice cream, assuring me that it’s delicious. “You’d love it!”
Maybe I would. I love bacon, so maybe bacon-flavored ice cream is delicious, but I don’t need bacon-flavored ice cream in my life. I don’t need it to exist. We don’t need it to exist. Baskin-Robbins has 31 flavors. Ben & Jerry’s has more than 60 flavors. Carvel has two dozen. Blue Bell has 66 flavors.
If the ice cream industry has resorted to bacon and mayonnaise, two products normally found on a BLT, something is wrong. We’ve reached the limit of our ice cream flavors. We’ve reached peak flavor.
We have enough choices already.
Yes, it’s true that on occasion, I will try a sample of a new flavor, and on a very rare occasion, I will order that flavor, but it’s almost always a mistake. It’s hard to beat chocolate or strawberry or cookie dough. Mint chocolate chip always kicks ass. If I love these flavors, why dabble with uncertainty. Why add unnecessary choice to my life? Why risk ice cream disappointment?
My son, Charlie, almost always orders vanilla when we go for ice cream, which has been a lot this summer with our family’s ice cream adventures. With every possible flavor available to him, he chooses vanilla because he likes it. Every time.
He gets it. Simplicity. Vanilla is a solid flavor. Hard to beat.
And infinitely better than mayonnaise-flavored ice cream.
