Coke Floats

The coke float may be one of the best things I’ve ever tasted.  I’ve been thinking of ways to describe it for over a week now and nothing seems to fit exactly.  Every simile and every metaphor are too much of a cliché,  How do you describe a taste that makes you forget about tasting anything at all and instead transforms you into the very cloud you were hoping to savor, a cloud to float carelessly and carefree above the earth?  That’s how powerful and flavorful a coke float is.  It’s pure happiness in a glass. 

But how does it taste? It is the perfect blend of flavor – cool vanilla cream with the sweet zip of carbonated coca cola.  When the ice cream starts to melt into the coke, the flavors fold into one another just as if that was the desired effect.  The coke and the ice cream are that perfect couple who bring out the best in each other: the cool, calm, and collected character side by side with an interesting, inspiring, and intoxicating individual. Perfection.

I’ve tried two different types of ice cream in my floats: Dreyer’s Vanilla and Blue Bell Country Vanilla.  They are both extremely creamy, but in different ways.  Dreyer’s has that soft serve texture that just melts in your mouth (and your coke!) and has a clean vanilla taste.  Blue Bell has a much richer vanilla flavor that makes me wonder why I never splurged on ice cream more often.  It makes me regret missing out on these delicious flavors for most of my life.  But that’s ok.  I plan on making up for it this summer!

Steak & Eggs

I was disappointed with my first taste of scrambled eggs.  I imagined them to be light and fluffy, salted clouds with a yellow ribbon of yoked flavor.  Unfortunately, my imagination tasted better than the reality.  The eggs were rubbery, flat and didn’t even tease my taste buds.

Of course, my husband I thought we were being creative for my first real helping of eggs.  We had leftover steak from Easter that were already seasoned and grilled.  We thought the eggs would complement them nicely, so we chopped up onions and green bell peppers and whisked them into the gooey mix.  Then we dusted the mixture with paprika before dumping it all into an olive oiled skillet.

It didn’t taste bad, but it wasn’t GREAT either.  I always expect greatness from food, my calories.  If I don’t have it, I will seek it out.  I tried sprinkling the eggs with salt and pepper, but still couldn’t escape the flatness.  And then the husband suggested the miracle of all condiments: ketchup!

I squirt a huge pool of ketchup on my plate and dipped the eggs and the steak in it.  The combination of sweet and salty tomato saved my steak and eggs combo.  I’m more impressed with the versatility and surprising flavor of ketchup than the scrambled eggs.  (Expect another post on ketchup in the future!)

Potato Chips

I never understood what the big deal was about potato chips. They’re greasy, they’re salty, and they’re noisy. Crunch, crunch, CRUNCH.  And they’re served with everything from deli sandwiches, to hamburgers, to appetizers at birthday parties.  This was one food item that was hard to avoid as a kid.  Luckily, I didn’t like it, so it was easy to just say no.  The corn chip has always been an excellent alternative.

But now that I’ve been cleared for eating potatoes, I have given the potato chip another chance.  I’ve discovered Ruffles Natural Reduced Fat Sea Salted Potato Chips.  They are soy free and corn free, but most importantly not taste free.

These chips don’t seem to be nearly as greasy as other chips that I’ve tried. That means you can have a handful of chips and the only residue left on your hands after you have gobbled them all down is salt. What’s even better is that there are only three ingredients in these yummy treats instead of a novel of unpronounceable mystery products. Yes, they’re still noisy, but I don’t seem to mind it now that I’m the one making the noise.  Crunch, crunch, YUM!

Why a picture of an empty bag of chips?  Because I ate them all!