Taste of home

While there are a few foods I crave from the States--the occasional cheeseburger or quesadilla or bagel, for instance--by and large I don't have many complaints about eating here. I generally avoid the few American chains--I've never eaten at a McDonalds in Europe, and the only time I go to Starbucks is if I need coffee beans or if nothing else is open (it doesn't help that a latte costs around $5). But I recently discovered something I had been craving without realising it: good ice cream. Unlike Italy, which is worth a trip just for the gelato, the ice cream in Switzerland is pretty mediocre (Mövenpick charges an arm and a leg so you might think it would be good, but it's nothing special). So imagine my surprise when Gretchen came home a few weeks ago with a pint of Ben & Jerry's ice cream! I had been seriously jonesing for some Chocolate Fudge Brownie (which, thankfully, is among their Top Ten flavors and so hopefully won't end up in the Flavor Graveyard anytime soon) but didn't know it. Now I've discovered that there's a shop in the train station that sells individual-sized containers of Ben & Jerry's with a little spoon inside. It's still not quite as good as a trip to Italy for gelato, but it certainly does the trick.