Fro-Yo (No Mo’!)

—-Hold up, Sarah. Fro-Yo, NO MO’? What do you mean? You are the yogurt QUEEN!
—-Yes, yes. And I still am. Read on…all will be made clear…

If you know me (or read this blog and therefore “know” me), you’ve probably figured out a few truths about me.

#1- I unabashedly watch an extremely high proportion of reality TV programming.
#2- I do not believe in high heels, pork rinds, or fear of diet soft drinks.
#3- I love/adore/crave-approximately-88.92%-of-the-time delicious, creamy ice cream treats…most specifically, frozen yogurt.

Well, today, in order to benefit the residents of Austin (and complete an new blog post/article–blarticle? blogticle? articlog?* for culturemob.com), I sacrificed my stomach in the name of self-serve soft-serve and comparative custard-y critique (try saying all that three times fast) and visited not one, not two, but SEVEN different frozen yogurt establishments. [It would have been eight, but Yum Yum Frozen Yogurt is closed on Mondays. Therefore, I will not be linking to their website at this time.]

*Nope, not that one. Sounds like a pre-heart attack condition.

Interestingly enough, all of these shops are within about 3 miles of each other. Two of them are literally one block apart. This is clearly a sign of trends taking over the world. Fro-yo is the new bacon. Or the new cupcake? Not that I’m complaining.

I’ll let you know when I get my full write-up completed, but for those of you in town, or for those of you looking to open your own shop and wondering what a fro-yo aficionado regards as a sign of a good shop…my favorite for flavor was probably tart. [With a period. And no, I did not choose them because of my love for arbitrary punctuation...]
I got to talk to the owner, Michael, for awhile, and he was not only incredibly nice, but has a clear knowledge of, and passion for, his product. Five of the twelve flavors are certified as organic (thought you know I don’t consider that a “be all, end all”), and all have the official designation of containing live and active yogurt cultures. The reason the flavor is so good, however, is that he actually manufactured his own machines so that real fruit puree could be used in them. Seriously, the raspberry flavor was one of the best frozen yogurts I have ever had, completely lacking the artificial aftertaste [not that there is anything wrong with that ] of most frozen yogurts.

The avocado flavor that was being touted on the street tasted legitimately like I was about to make guacamole and stopped to sample a bit of the green stuff before mashing in anything else. [In other words, it was a little bit bitter and needs some sweetness, which I was assured was going to be added in further test samples.]

So tart. (with a period) was great, and fabulous for the health-conscious and granola-y [like me ], but then I went to Berry Austin, and it was so unique and kitschy/quirky that I felt like if Austin Attitude got together with Miss Frozen Yogurt, this store would be their lovechild.

I was able to talk to Shannon, the daughter of the owner, and she told me all about the shop’s mission to help encourage recycling. The wall commands you to “Imagine a world in which trash ends up as art,” and all of the furniture was purchased on craigslist. The walls are covered with repurposed materials, the tables are decoupaged with Austin pictures, and mosaics of interesting objects (including some Austin relics) abound. Those wall dividers below….those are made of old CDs.
Berry Austin is also the only fro-yo shop with reusable “green” bowls and spoons. Seriously, people, let’s get with THAT program.
Anyways…I realize if you don’t live in Austin this is not all that interesting to you, so perhaps we’ll move on to what else I ate (besides frozen yogurt) today. [Is that really any more interesting?]

It’s a good thing I didn’t have a CFY for breakfast, as I might have had yogurt overload. As it was, I almost vowed to give up the stuff forever.

Almost.

I had some overnight oats (so, yes, there was a little yogurt in there, but…) made in my usual manner and topped with what I could salvage of a dying peach and a few blueberries. I sprinkled on a wee bit of my homemade Trail Mix Granola as well.
I hate to admit it, but my “lunch” was a whole lot of frozen yogurt samples…hence the title of my blog post…it’s actually my stomach crying out in slight pain at cultured dairy product overload. (Or, alternatively, my brain as it sharply froze a number of times.)

Because my stomach was a little topsy-turvy, I had an early early “dinner” when I got home that was surprisingly amazing (but because it was so early, I’ll most likely be going back for more treats later).

What is hiding in that Damascus Bakeries oatmeal-flavored (and incredible) Roll-Out wrap?
That would be a Gardenburger California Burger* left over from our cook-out yesterday
combined with some sauteed and sliced zucchini and summer squash, as well as the last two slow-roasted tomatoes. [I will clearly need to make more.] There is also some Stubb’s BBQ sauce in there, because you know how I feel about condiments. [And BBQ is by far the best! Especially on this particularly veggie burger.]
*These are actually my favorite store-bought veggie burgers of all time. I think it has something to do with the fact that they remind me of summers at camp when I pretended to be (and ultimately became for awhile) a vegetarian.
Well, I guess I’m going to go watch The Bachelorette (considering truth #1 as referenced at the beginning of this post), and then perhaps cut this GARGANTUAN honeydew I bought because, yes, it was so massively huge. I hope that the ratio of size to tastiness is not an inverse one.

Yes, that is a normal-sized kiwi and plum sitting in front of it for a demonstration of its sheer enormity.

I will probably pass on eating any fro-yo or faux-yo this evening, however.