Same But Different
While visiting the trifle-eating timeshare cat and his family recently, there was eating. Much eating. Some might even say gluttony (and very accurate they would be, too). The trifle eating cat's mum* is a wonderful cook. She also has a love of gelato which, while maybe not as extreme as my own, makes her a great partner in crime**.
Over the past year (time moves in strange ways down the coast, meaning I'm never entirely sure exactly when things happened, but anyway, relatively recently) a new ice cream place opened in the town centre. There were already two ice cream places, so arguably a third might be stretching the friendship. However, this one is a highly welcome addition, which makes its own gelato and also its own chocolates. It was paid a visit on the recent trip***.
It is an old source of amusement to my mum and me that we often choose the same things on a menu, usually discovered when one orders and the other one either replicates the entire thing, or tries hastily to change their mind in the interests of variety, originality, or something else to try around the table****. This time, however, something slightly different happened.
This was my mum's gelato...
And this was mine...
The same? Visually, very nearly. The taste, though, was very different.
On the one hand, there was bubble gum and licorice. On the other, there was cherry and crème caramel. I had been a little dubious about the bubble gum, and even more so about the licorice***** - to my surprise, both were delicious. The bubble gum was up there with the mint green concoctions I fondly remember from childhood, but with a little more subtlety. Although it would take a lot to displace cherry from its position as my favourite gelato du jour (despite this being a hotly contested role, with pistachio and cassata always in the background, and all sorts of other distracting flavours from time to time...).
A little more locally, there may be a need for a visit to Gelato Messina, which is the main source of those other distracting flavours. Roast almond and amarena cherry might be the best one I've heard of lately (and have yet to try). Also burnt caramel and ginger (yum). Although peanut butter and chocolate sounds intriguing. And the recent suggestion of bread and butter pudding flavour is just inspired!
* Also my mum, although I would stop short of calling the trifle eating cat my brother (this may be disputed by the rest of the family, who might argue that I don't know my place. I suspect the place is quite likely to be lower on the list than the said cat, and that would be entirely reasonable...).
** In gelato, and in many other things besides.
*** Only one visit. By coastal standards, this was positively restrained.
***** This sometimes works. The rest of the time, it leads to food envy on the part of the person who changed their mind (oh, for the vindication of food envy on the part of whichever one of us didn't change our minds, though!).
***** Which is odd, really, given my love of most things licorice related. Perhaps it's just suspicion on my part about the ability to translate an unexpected and very specific flavour into gelato. And after the apple pie gelato at Gelatissimo, I should be over that... (it appears to have vanished from their website though, which is a worry).
