Better Than Vanilla

Last night, my husband wrote his homage to vanilla (specifically Carvel soft-serve vanilla ice cream). This got me thinking – yes, I like vanilla, but I have always maintained that everything goes better with chocolate chips.

Vanilla ice cream? Add chocolate chips. Poundcake or pancakes? Add chocolate chips. Brownies? Yes, add chocolate chips. And like vanilla, chocolate goes with everything – peanut butter, berries, marshmallows, even chicken (remember mole?).

I guess everybody has got their thing – my brother claims everything goes better with raisins. I like raisins in lots of things, but not everything.

Then, there is hot sauce and ketchup.  I am grouping these together because they are tomato based – but I imagine the hot sauce people and the ketchup people would like to have a word with me.  I know guys who add hot sauce to every savory meal they consume.  (Many of them work on trading desks – coincidently or not, I will let you decide.)  I kind of feel like if you are doing this, you basically just want a conduit to put the hot sauce on and are not interested in whatever that person is actually eating.

Then there are the ketchup people who seem to have a keen inclination to glop ketchup onto eggs and onto steaks, specifically, for some reason. And French fries!  We cannot forget the French fries. My theory here is that person really wants the sugar that is hiding the ketchup. Not my choice for a vehicle for sugar consumption.

Back to the vanilla. I will agree it is a delicious flavor in its own right. I am not sure how the word “vanilla” came to equate plain or bland.  Maybe it became ubiquitous because it is so yummy and got put into everything, and now people take it for granted.

Good thing we don’t have to choose. Frankly, I will take a black and white cookie any day of the week.

Thanks for reading!

Eve