My Love Affair with Vanilla

I have always loved vanilla… even as a young child when given a choice.. I always chose vanilla. The cartoon of a kid standing in front of a large board listing all of Howard Johnson’s 28 ice cream flavors… thinking and thinking … only to finally choose… vanilla… that’s me.. totally me.

As I grew older… I started liking chocolate and then specialty flavors … but deep down in my heart… I’m still a vanilla gal… for sure. I lean toward vanilla in all things pastry and desserts. I bake with it… make puddings with it… make drinks with it… and one would think I’d know lots about it… well… think again.. I honestly didn’t.

My parents went to San Antonio on a trip with friends.. and while they were there… the ladies went shopping.. BIG surprise… and ended up in a gourmet foods store… another BIG surprise… the ladies were all over these big bottles of vanilla.. so my mother.. went along and bought hers too.

When my Mother was lamenting that she bought this big bottle of vanilla (32 ounce) and how she doesn’t bake much anymore… I offered to take it “off her hands”… since I go through so much vanilla… uh huh.. I was more than happy to “help” her out…

Anyway Mom sent the bottle to me… and I was in vanilla heaven.. a large bottle of vanilla… and I mean large… now you know how expense teeny bottles are… just figure what a 32 ounce bottle is worth… she should have sent it with an armed courier.

Vanilla is expensive no doubt about it.. with the economy the way it is … I was thinking of investing in a “vanilla farm” .. better yet… make my own vanilla farm…. But first I thought I’d better investigate a bit more… since other than loving it.. I didn’t know much about vanilla.

So I will share what I found…. see my post All About Vanilla