I Am the Christopher Columbus of the Ice Cream Aisle

As a special favor to all 1 of you who come here and read what I have to say, I must share with you that I have uncovered the holy grail of decadent frozen treats...

Hagen Daaz, Special Reserve, Pomegranate and Dark Chocolate Ice Cream bars.

There I was, haplessly wandering down the aisles of my Giant Food looking for a sign, any sign that would lead me to chocolate craving salvation. And that's when I saw them.

I have long been a fan of the Pomegranate. Though as a kid, honestly I thought they were called Chinese Apples. Whatever. Of course, in recent years, pomegranate has hit the big time, what with all of the antioxidant blah-blah-blah surrounding it's ruby like seeds. Whereas years ago you could scarcely find the darned things, now, everywhere you look there is pomegranate juice, pomegranate flavored lip stain (honestly, I swear...and yes, I have some) pomegranate yogurt drinks (incidentally, also yummy...goooo Dannon!!!!)...but it never occurred to me that someone, someday might make it into ice cream. So much for being clairvoyant - eh?

Dark Chocolate has also been a lifelong love with me. I can remember being the only kid that wanted the "Special Reserve" dark chocolate bars out of the Hershey's Minis bag...and thinking that although there was clearly something wrong with me, if loving dark chocolate was wrong, I didn't want to be right...So you can imagine my special brand of joy when reports started surfacing about the healthful effects of dark chocolate (in moderation) (but I didn't really hear the moderation part. Did you? Did somebody say moderation? Yeah, didn't think so.). Where I used to have to sneak off in a back alley with a bar of baker's bittersweet chocolate to indulge my craving, I was now finding granola bars even with dark chocolate chips because, yeah, dark chocolate was now a health food!!!!

Anyway, as I was saying...there I was in the frozen food aisle, scanning the Ben and Jerry's and the Edy's for something, anything that would inspire me enough to be worth the extra heaping of calories. Because I am easing into a diet plan. Right now I am just counting calories...and so far I have found that I can count really, really high. Perhaps someday I will limit the number of calories I allow myself, but for right now, I am content with the counting...I am like the Rainman of calories. Except that Tom Cruise isn't my brother. Which is good. Because incest = bad. At any rate, Ben and Edy were leaving me empty...nothing so tantalizing that I just hadtohaveit. I dutifully scanned the gold foil section of the ice creams, seriously not hoping too hard, because Hagen Daaz, while deliciously creamy is not often inventive. That's when a picture of my beloved "Chinese Apple" caught my eyes. At which point I jumped and zoomed in for a closer look. I was so overwhelmed with excitement that I actually opened the freezer case door into my own nose. (See, because I know that there is only like 1 of you who reads this, I have no fears about letting that one slip....Hi mom!!!) Working through the pain I grabbed two boxes...one to hold on my throbbing nose and the other to examine for clues that I might be being Punk'd. Thankfully the ice cream angels were smiling down upon me (probably laughing their asses off) and it was in fact the real deal. I started looking around tearfully, for someone to share the news with but the only people there were staring at me rather dubiously and shuffling away muttering something about drugs being bad.

With no one to preach to I looked back to the freezer section, vessel of all that is frozen and delicious, and noted that they also make a pomegranate dark chocolate chunk ice cream in a convenient 1 pint single serve helping. Overcome with gratitude I felt weak in the knees and so checked the calories...the bars are 280 per bar. And there are 3 per box. I bought one box. They are now gone. Amen.