Pleasant Surprises (Sunday, February 19, 2006)

So today I went to Santa Barbara with a few friends, (Ryan, Tony & Moose.) Since I knew we'd be there I looked up Santa Barbara in my Best Ice Cream on the West coast book and sure enough found a place called McConnell's (http://www.mcconnells.com/) which is said to be real tops. What exactly IS "tops?" Well, let me educate you a little.
There are a few things that demarcate "Super Premium" Ice Cream. There are, of course, the fine ingredients and the creative imagination with flavours. But technically speaking, there is 1)Butterfat percentage and 2)Overrun percentage.
Butterfat makes Ice Cream rich, creamy and smooth. The higher the percentage the better(with low end brands averaging 10% below & the super premiums 15% up.)
Overrun is the percentage of Air that is whipped into the Ice Cream so that it is not pure ice. Often times cheap brands will boost profits by having an overrun percentage as high as 50. These brands often feel much lighter(obviously.) The super premium brands will be less than 25. Much like alcohol, the overrun is twice what the percentage is(ie proof/alcohol So, an Ice Cream with an overrun of 40 would be a very high quality because it would only be 20% air whereas an overrun of 80-100 would be 40% air and so low in quality. Understand?
Ok, so McConnell's, on paper, is a Super Premium Ice Cream, but to MY taste buds, it was just good. I wouldn't compare it to Mashti Malone's any day of the week. Nonetheless, I got three scoops to be sure; toasted almond chocolate, Russian Nollrode and Burgundy Strawberry.
A wonderful surprise was that we happened to be very near to Solvang where a very special candy shoppe resides. I discovered this shoppe called Ingborg's Chocolates, on a road trip with John Mayberry and Brian Keele a few years ago and found what would turn out to be one of my VERY favorite candies. And that would be Familie Guf, (http://www.ingeborgs.com/licorice2.html), which I think means that it is a assortment of gummy candies found in the MALACO candy family and brought together for your chewing pleasure. In short, the gummies found inside of a bag of Familie Guf, (& Familie Mix, a second cornucopia of flavors) are comprised of textures and flavours that I have yet to encounter elsewhere. And I've looked, believe me. I can say with a clean conscience that I've consumed a lot of candy, much of it not of domestic production. Israeli, Italian, French, Dutch, Belgian, Japanese, Chinese, Czech, Polish, English, Mexican... hmmm, well, I'm still looking for new stuff. And the intriguing part of Familie Guff is that I have found it NOWHERE else. My favourite candy bar, Picnic(chocolate, caramel, rice crisps, peanuts and raisins) is of English import and, while difficult to find, I can think of three places off the top of my head that semi/consistently have them in supply(English Grocer-Fullerton, Toluca Lake Pharmacy-Toluca Lake and the Sandwhich Shoppe-Lan...shit, I can't remember the name, it's off of Melrose I think.) There also is a Jewish candy store I go to called Sweeties. It's on Pico and Robertson near where I study and I go there if I'm early to class. I always hope they'll have Familie Guf cause they have so many European delights, but I don't know if Guf is Kosher. They never have it but they have a nice assortment of other things. And I discovered another Kosher shop on Fairfax while transfixed on the mesmerizing ass of a curvaceous Jewish woman as she meandered her way into the fantastic store. The proprietor’s name is Gall and he's a real nice guy. What is especially significant about THIS store is that, after nearly eight years of searching, I have found my special brand of APPLE Orbit chewing gum that I discovered while in Poland and immediately fell in love with. So much so that I bought an entire box of packs (24 or something) and still have two of the original eight year old packs. I have since found that Tropical Trident is the perfect sugarless chewing gum, sustaining flavor, texture and being generally consistent. But the rediscovery of Apple Orbit is a wonderful door to the past for me.
Tony mentioned today how rich I'd be if I spent the same amount of effort and enthusiasm on business affairs and money matters as I exert on food and exotic tastes. I thought this was a very interesting observation. But NOT quite as interesting as the Cabernet Chocolate pretzel dip I was tasting at the moment.