A Current Favorite Dessert: Gelato; Sour Cream; Salt

There is a brand of gelato called Talenti. It comes in a fancy-looking clear container that one might mistake for a glass jar before they dropped it and it did not shatter. I normally do not buy it; we are a Haagen Dazs family. (Our affiliation is likely because we do not plan to eat ice cream, we just realize that we need it late at night when we are walking by the deli down the block. And at the deli, it’s Haagen Dazs, which I am not complaining about)

But one day I shopped at the food co-op, which is expensive and annoying but of course, has a great selection of organics and new-fangled ice creams in aesthetically pleasing containers. And I came upon a Talenti’s Belgian Milk Chocolate gelato, which I thought my husband would really love. (I tend to go for French roast, dark chocolate, peppery juicy zinfandel, but he really appreciates medium-body coffees and chocolates and wines and cheeses and I’ve developed more of a taste for the subtle goodnesses, too. Also, gelato makes me crazy; I love it.)

I bought a container of Belgian milk chocolate so we could have it during the debate. I have been cooking real dinners to eat together during the debates, because 1. solace from dystopian thoughts about the future (present?) 2. it’s a fun way to spend with Matthew, who gets home from work at about the time they start, but which is unfortunately just about my hour of expiration for civility and good conversation and 3. our teething baby automatically will not sleep if there is a debate on, and if I am watching politics with a screaming, wiggly zero year old—albeit a lovely, lively, adorable one—I need a double dose of solace.

I thought that having a good dessert might help.

The dessert is indeed good; Matthew and another friend with an excellent palate tried it and gave it the thumbs up.  It’s really smooth and chocolatey though not too rich. It’s a great base but by itself, it’s a little one-note for me. In my ice cream as in my life, I like to have a lot going on. For dinner I’d made little personalized vegetarian enchilada casseroles (butternut squash, spinach, mushrooms, broccoli) , and that meant that there was a bit of sour cream in the condiment bar I’d set up on the coffee table.

So I added a bit of sour cream on the top of the gelato to get a little acid in there, right where you might put a tiny bit of whipped cream, which I’ve honestly never understood as a condiment for ice cream. (“Hmm, I am having a cold slippery sweet thing. Perhaps I should top it with a . . . cold slippery sweet thing?”)  But the sour cream added a tiny bit of contrast in mouth feel and taste. And then I added some Maldon salt flakes.*

And suddenly, I had the best ice cream thing ever. The sour cream freezes into a little slidey glacial sour chunk that offsets the complete smooth of the flavor and the salt, well, see the asterisk down there.

This is a good thing to eat during the debate. Ice cream, a bit of sour cream, Maldon sea salt, and you may as well get a blindfold, because the debates are sort of scary. Perhaps some earplugs to drown out the baby.

Oh, and Mitt Romney’s lies.

Try some tonight!

*If you have not had this salt, and you are seeking a cheap and cheerful way to immediately escalate your quality of life, try it. Even the 3 year old licked a finger and put it into a little bowl of Maldon the other day and said “Mommy, this is REALLY GOOD SALT.” And he was absolutely correct; all salt was not born equal; no, no it was not.