Wally the Green Monster and an Ice Cream Dream

A few nights ago, I dreamt that I went out for ice cream with my sister. She ordered crème brulee ice cream. It looked nothing like crème brulee (I don’t think crème brulee ice cream would have candy pieces mixed in). I ordered Green Monster ice cream. All I remember was that it was green, and a clear nod to the Red Sox mascot. When I woke up, I couldn’t get that ice cream out of my mind. Even though I had no idea what it was supposed to taste like, I had to have it. Since it didn’t exist, I needed to invent it.

So I dusted off my Cuisinart ice cream maker (yes, a complete waste of money – I never use it) and managed to find the recipe for a basic vanilla ice cream. Since the ice cream had to be green, I determined that it would be mint flavored. Plain old mint flavored ice cream would not be sufficient, and mint chocolate chip is too common, so I decided to make a mint Oreo cookie ice cream.

This was really quite easy – mix up all the ingredients (minus the Oreos), pour the mixture into the freezer chamber of the ice cream maker, and turn on the machine. Let it whir for 20 minutes, then add the crushed Oreos. My only road block was the mint extract – the grocery store was out, and I didn’t have enough at home. The recipe for mint chocolate chip ice cream called for 1/2 teaspoon of extract, and I had maybe slightly more than half of that amount. So, I compensated with vanilla extract and crossed my fingers.

The ice cream was done, and if I do say so myself, it tasted quite good (mint and Oreos, yum). But what was so Green Monster about it? This is where I had to get creative.

I scooped some ice cream in a cup, added two Oreos for eyes and a maraschino cherry for the nose. Ladies and gentlemen, please allow me to introduce my Green Monster ice cream!

I do have to say, I was feeling quite proud of myself. Even B thought it was really good – and not in that “I’m dating you so I have to tell you it’s good” sort of way. He actually liked it! I was waiting all week for the holidays to end so I would have time to sit down and write about my big Green Monster ice cream accomplishment.

Before I get riddled with comments, let me tell you the rest of the story.

Flash forward to this afternoon. I am literally sitting down with my laptop, writing this blog entry when B comes over. He was charged with picking up dinner rolls for our meal of Guinness Beef Stew, so he had to stop at the store on his way to my place. Since we opted for heat and serve rolls, he found himself in the freezer section. What else did he find in the freezer section?

Son of a bitch.

Hood, the official ice cream of the Boston Red Sox, has produced Green Monster Mint ice cream. Chocolatey mint socks swirled with thick fudge in mint ice cream. (I may be being a tad too petty, but truth be told it wasn’t so much a fudge swirl as it was a layer of fudge that was frozen on top of the ice cream.)

I swear I had no conscious knowledge of this ice cream. It is possible that I once knew about it and forgot, then had a dream that was triggered by a suppressed memory, and the resulting idea of a mint flavored ice cream was not as clever as I originally thought. But really, how likely is that?

Now that I was aware of the Hood version of Green Monster ice cream, there was only one thing left to do. It’s time for a taste test.

A completely objective and unbiased research panel was assembled. Okay, it was just me and B. But it’s Sunday night – no one else was around. My conclusion was that mine is better – the mint in the Hood version was a little overwhelming, antiseptic tasting even. The chocolate socks were mint flavored and that was a little too much mint for one bite of ice cream. As I mentioned before, the fudge swirl was not as described and was pretty hard to break to get to the ice cream. The mint flavor was more subtle in my version – perhaps aided by the addition of vanilla. The Oreos added a chocolate flavor while balancing the mint with the smoothness of the cream filling. Plus, my sundae actually looked like Wally the Green Monster.

B agreed with me on all of my points, and pointed out that the fudge had a very strong peanut buttery flavor (turns out one of the primary ingredients in the fudge was peanut oil).

With the test concluded, and the results in, Wannabe Foodie’s Green Monster ice cream prevails. Perhaps it wasn’t as original as I had hoped, but I can safely say that I came up with the idea completely independently even though the product already existed. It’s not my fault I didn’t know about it.

Hmmm… if B liked my ice cream better, how come he finished off the Hood ice cream instead???