Butter Almond

For reasons that have never been fully explained to me, it is very hard to find butter almond ice cream. I suspect its rarity has to do either with the price of almonds, or the lack of people who enjoy the flavor. I really like butter almond ice cream, so I find it had to believe there is any just cause for its absence from the ice cream shelf in the store.

Nonetheless, there is little butter almond ice cream to be found. A year or two back I discovered a “Nutty Neapolitan” in the Turkey Hill brand, which had the three flavors of chocolate, vanilla, and butter almond. However, it always seemed like the butter almond was the smallest of the three sections, and had scarcely more than one serving. Before then, butter almond ice cream was (at best) a once in a year experience when some of the Perry’s brand showed up.

I think it has been years since I had Perry’s butter almond ice cream. It had come to the point where I had begun to figure the flavor was completely discontinued.

Until now.

I wasn’t really looking for any ice cream for myself when I went shopping on Monday. I needed to pick up ice cream to make sure the stock for guests was replenished after the weekend visitors, and I thought if anything caught my eye and my fancy maybe I would get something for myself. It was in this disinterested mood that I breezed through the ice cream aisle, glancing over the Perry’s section (which was on sale), noted the butter almond ice cream sitting there, and walked on.

I literally did a double take, the fact of what I was seeing not registering until I was out of the ice cream aisle. I turned around and went back to read the boxes again, disbelieving. But no, it was true. Butter Almond ice cream sitting there on the shelf, on sale, only a few boxes left.

Well, you see, there really wasn’t much choice. I just had to do it. Who knows if it will be another decade before I see it again?

Yes, I nearly cleaned out the stock. I bought four boxes. There were only six on the shelf, so there was good reason to question whether there would be any left next week, much less next month or the rest of the year.

This may be torturous news for the rest of my family. Quite a few other people in my immediate family like butter almond as much as I do, and my Mom and Dad shop at Wegmans, too. They shop on Friday, I shop on Monday. If the shipment came into the store in the middle of last week, they got first crack at the loot, and that may explain why the shelf was so desolate. If the shipment came in over the weekend or on Monday–well, it may just be that I got four boxes of butter almond ice cream, and they got none.

But I suppose if you come over to visit I’ll share.

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