Recently I’ve noticed a narrow focus in my taste – specifically when it comes to food.  Not picky, just knowing more of what I like, I think.  Of course, I’ve always had an opinion on food and I certainly have my favorites, but some things are just not good enough anymore.  Why waste calories on something I don’t really like, right?

Take burgers, for example.  It’s not like I’ve never had a burger before, but in recent years I’ve discovered that I particularly enjoy my burger, plain and dry with american cheese.  No special sauce.  No fancy cheese.  Definitely no lettuce, tomatoes, onions, or pickles.  When trying a new burger joint, my question is can they make a good burger without all the extras?

Most recently I discovered that I actually have no desire for vanilla ice cream.  If it’s not chocolate, then I’m not interested. You’re probably thinking what’s the big deal, but I almost feel like I don’t even know who I am.  Seriously.  I always ate some version of vanilla with chocolate mixed in, but never chocolate ice cream.  It always seemed too much.  Weird, huh?

Chocolate Ice Cream is one thing, but  given the chance I will bypass that for a nice frozen ice water treat.  Specifically something along the lines of the following:

Flavor-Ice

How can you not love these?  Forget the whole, it’s just sugar, some sort of synthetic color and water, these things are amazing.  Of course, it’s easy to get carried away.  Ok, Ok. It’s easy for ME to get carried away.  “Honest, I only ate two, wait four, no wait, oh nevermind.”

But this is no surprise to me.  I’ve loved these things since I was a child.  But let’s be honest, it looks a little silly for a 30 something to walk around with one of these.  So, I gave them up for something more sophisticated – chocolate ice cream.  Sad.

But tonight, my palette didn’t narrow, it exploded.  My mom, my husband, my daughter and I went out for a gelato.  It was our “instead of dinner because we’re still too full from lunch” treat.  Some people call that dessert.  I like to think of it as a “meal replacement”.

I’ve had gelato before but with my recent move to chocolate, gelato no longer holds the same appeal that it once did.  I mean why go for the chocolate chip when I know I will be disappointed?  Why not just skip it all together?  That’s a depressing thought – skip ice cream?  Who does that?  Who am I?

And then it happened, I ordered my daughter a sample of the water-based gelato, strawberry flavor.  She didn’t want it and without thinking, I ate it.  Something about having a child has caused a shift in my eating habits.  I often eat after her without even thinking.  “ You don’t want those last ten goldfish, here let me.”  So I ate the sample meant for her like it was second nature.

It was delicious.  I think I may have even heard someone singing.  Then I tried the Texas Ruby Grapefruit. I think I died a little bit.  I might have even pinched myself.  I turned to my husband and said something like; OMG, that was delicious.  Of course my husband is puzzled because they’ve always had the water-based gelato.  I’ve always been too distracted by the dairy-based flavors to notice.  Truthfully, when I saw the water-based, I instantly thought bright orange and bright green sherbet.  EW.  People – this is definitely NOT sherbet.

Not sure if that means I judge books by their covers, don’t try enough new things or just wrote too much information about my new love for water-based gelato.

I just checked out their flavor list and I’m pretty sure the orange basil might be a little piece of heaven.  To be honest I feel a little cheated.  To think of all the time I have wasted on the other flavors.  No time like the present to make up for it, right?

Please don’t e-mail me the calories.  I prefer to remain naive convincing myself that the calories I’m consuming are cancelled out by a move toward a more sophisticated palette.  Plus, I ate it out of a cup.  Unheard of!  I’m pretty sure that by not eating the waffle cone, I might have even lost a couple of pounds.