The Gelato Diet

It was a typical day.

Or so I thought.

Wandering the aisles of the grocery store, I glanced dispiritedly at the contents of my cart: cat food for the stray, milk, bananas, cold cuts.

Then I remembered that my parents had half committed to coming over for dinner and I considered buying a pint of ice cream so my father would have something he liked for dessert.

Deftly, I swung my cart over to the frozen foods section.

Standing in front of dozens of brands and flavors of ice cream, I tried to choose one. My husband appeared at my elbow and made a couple of suggestions—pralines and cream? Rocky Road?

No, no, no.

Hands on hips, I paced to and fro, much like a prison guard in front of a row of cells. What did I want? I wanted something out of the ordinary, something I’d never tried before, something spectacular!

And then I saw it. There it was: a pint-sized pint of Talenti gelato—Sea Salt Caramel.

I didn’t know it yet, but I would soon discover that “A rich, golden Argentine caramel base is brought to life with Fleur De Sel sea salt, the caviar of salt. Talenti then adds chocolate covered sea salt caramel truffles to complete this masterpiece.”

Still, even without knowing that, we were intrigued. And despite the fact that it was the tiniest container of any food product that we had ever seen, we snatched up both the Sea Salt Caramel flavor and the Southern Butter Pecan flavor. We were thrilled to discover that the Talenti gelatos were on sale, two for $7, so we made off with our treasures (or at least as far as the checkout counter).

The irony of the situation, I’m afraid, was already lost on us. Believe it or not, on that very day, we had started a new diet. We’d heard of a dietary supplement made of green coffee bean extract and had already taken the first dose. This dietary supplement would suppress our appetites and keep sugar from turning into fat! Miraculous!

So, oblivious, we made our way home to take our second dose of diet pills before dinner, while clutching our two tiny pints of Talenti gelato.

Later that evening, after a meager dinner, we decided we’d waited long enough and should at least taste our contraband treat. My parents cancelled at the last minute, so we had no other distractions and, frankly, no other demands on our time at all.

Carefully, we unscrewed the lids of our respective gelatos (remember, he chose Southern Butter Pecan and I chose Sea Salt Caramel).

“The screw top makes it seem more high end,” I observed, shrewdly.

“That’s for sure,” was the not unexpected response.

“Did you check the calories?” After all, we were on a diet.

He carefully reviewed the nutritional information and nodded reassuringly.

“We can eat a quarter of the container and that will be 200 calories.”

My eyebrows shot up in surprise and delight. “That’s not bad!”

“No! And gelato has a third less fat than ice cream!”

“Thought so,” I replied, smugly. “That sounds right.”

Gingerly, we each dipped into our tiny pints of gelato and took a very little taste. After all, we were on a diet.

Well, my eyes rolled back in my head and he slumped over, weak with disbelief.

“Which one is better??”

Quickly we switched and each tried the other, only to have the same reaction.

“Oh my God.”

“I know.”

“Thank God for Italians.”

“I know.”

We switched back and delved into a lengthy discussion about whose gelato was more delicious. Quite a lot of time passed.

“Did you see how long the sale would be on?”

He nodded. “A couple more days.”

We contemplated that for a while.

“How many more flavors did you see?”

“Oh, maybe ten or so.”

“Hmmmm.”

By then, we’d consumed our 200-calories worth of Talenti gelato and, with great regret, gently screwed the tops back onto the tiny containers.

“So,” I mused, “I wonder if I should just drive back to the grocery store.”

He frowned. “Tonight?”

I shrugged. “Well, tomorrow is Monday, and the week starts, and things will get hectic…”

He eyed me warily, trying to determine if I was serious or if this was a ploy to get him to offer to go. “You’re going to drive back there tonight?”

“Okay, maybe we should do some research.”

With that, he pulled out his iPad, googled Talenti gelato, and started listing the flavors: Caribbean Coconut, Sicilian Pistachio, German Chocolate Cake, Lisbon Lemon, Tahitian Vanilla Bean…

“Should you go now?” I cut in.

He stared at me. “Tonight?”

I glared back, wondering why he was being so obtuse. Clearly this was something of paramount importance to both of us, like our children’s health or world peace.

“I’ll go tomorrow after work,” he allowed.

“Okay. If you want to wait until tomorrow.”

Next day…

And sure enough, even though he didn’t get home until after 7:00, he showed up with two bulging grocery bags filled to the brim with pints of Talenti gelato in every color of the rainbow. With great relish, we lifted each precious unit out of the bags and placed them on the kitchen table.

“How many did you get?” I asked, marveling at the precious confections.

“Thirteen!”

“Wow!”

One by one we read out the flavors: Banana Chocolate Swirl, Belgian Milk Chocolate, Black Raspberry Chocolate Chip, Blood Orange Sorbetto, Caramel Cookie Crunch, Caribbean Coconut, Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup, Mediterranean Mint, Sicilian Pistachio, Simply Strawberry, Tahitian Vanilla Bean, and Toasted Almond.

Never had we done anything so pointless or so mindlessly reckless. Clearly it was a milestone; a defining moment. Our lives would now be divided into two halves: before the gelato and after the gelato.

We stared at the booty spread out on the table and then at each other.

“We should try them,” I whispered.

“All of them?”

“I think so, yes.”

So one by one, we removed the security plastic from the screw tops, and ate about 30-calories worth from each one.

This, as you can imagine, took some time and a lot of discussion.

Finally, and at long last, we slowly screwed all the tops back onto the containers and stacked our thirteen pints of Talenti gelato in the freezer. Once they were all tucked in for the night, we gazed at them lovingly, much the same way we used to gaze at our sleeping children.

“So which was your favorite?” He asked, as we reluctantly left the kitchen.

“Sea Salt Caramel. What about you?”

“Southern Butter Pecan.”

We had to laugh. We were back to the original two; the two that got us into this complicated and unlikely predicament in the first place.

But we would leave them tucked into the freezer for now. After all, we were on a diet.