Junk Food Nation, it’s a New Year, and one of the resolutions for many people is un-cluttering their lives.  Those who know me call me a hoarder, which is sort of true – but only on a small scale.  No, I don’t have thousands of used egg cartons stacked up and piles of old Sports Illustrated magazines (although who WOULDN’T want that stuff?)  No, instead, I exist in a world of kipple, a term I learned from my friend Jen and was coined by science fiction author Philip Dick as:

“Kipple is useless objects, like junk mail or match folders after you use the last match or gum wrappers or yesterday’s homeopape. When nobody’s around, kipple reproduces itself. For instance, if you to go bed leaving any kipple around your apartment, when you wake up there is twice as much of it. It always gets more and more.”

Yep, that’s me.   I have receipts, holiday cards, P90x worksheets, LivingSocial coupons, CDs, DVDs, books and correspondence strewn about my desk, my living room, my bookshelves. Once in a while I’ll do a thorough clean thru, but usually I just stack piles on top of piles. I’m smart.

My kipple extends even more intrusively into my email inbox. I know people who take great pride in only have 4-5 emails at the most in their inbox.  They respond to things right away and never look back.  Me, I have hundreds and HUNDREDS of emails in my inbox.  I’m one of those. And it’s bad.  I forget I have certain obligations, appointments, invitations until it’s too late. email kipple is ruining me.

But the biggest offender? Junk mail. And I’m not talking Spam mail for Viagra or breast-enlargment procedures (although who WOULDN’T want that stuff?) No, I’m talking about junk mail that I SIGNED UP FOR, yet spend a good 30 minutes every morning deleting.  Things like: Groupon offers from not only my city but from cities I *might* visit.  Overstock.com daily email deals, selling the same stupid sheets and the same stupid % off.  Listserv digests from my law school, college, and neighborhood.  I always delete, and rarely use, any of these emails.

So, for 2012, my new best friend is UNSUBSCRIBE. From now on, I am not signing up for any new offers, I’m not applying to any more internet contests, and when I get a junk mail I don’t want, I am unsubscribing unsubscribing unsubscribing.  1-800-Flowers.com? GONE!  Morningstar.com daily reports? GONE!  What’s new on Spotify? WHO CARES! I will be free of you, junk email monster.

I used to think “There’s no harm in subscribing to all these things, it doesn’t take that long to delete.” And that, my friends, is what kipple does to the mind.  No more.

Onto today’s junk food: Häagen-Dazs Limited Edition Blueberry Crumble Ice Cream!

The Money Shot

I remember seeing this tub of Häagen-Dazs Limited Edition Blueberry Crumble Ice Cream first on the way to Atlantic City. At the time, I discovered it at a gas station and had no way to preserve it for review – after all, I was mere hours away from having my liver and bank account tested in AC.  I vowed on that day that I would find this ice cream again and eat it.  And here we are.  Purchased at my local Wegmans, Blueberry Crumble…get in my belly!

Crumble crumble

Blueberry Crisp or Crumble is one of those things I never really go after in real life.  Always at the end of some buffet, your dessert options are most often the same: plates of slices of cheesecake, small bowls of ice cream, petit fours, and then some big pan full of apple crisp or blueberry crumble…Always with a big spoon and a couple of scrapes taken out of it.  Not the most appetizing.

But this ice cream?…….intriguing.

Bright & ripe

I must say, I love how Häagen-Dazs puts these flavor notes on the side of the carton.  Limited Edition Blueberry Crumble Ice Cream comes with buttery cobbler crust? That’s all I needed to know!

Cobbler pieces! Yes.

Blueberry ice cream and cobbler pieces – sounds delicious.  I’ve never had blueberry ice cream alone before.  I’m curious about it, since I’ve had blueberry yogurt plenty, and I’m not a HUGE fan.  I’ve always felt the round fruit taste of blueberries was, frankly, kind of weird with dairy. Sharper fruits like cherry and strawberry taste great with dairy – the milkiness mellows out the fruit.  But blueberries are pretty mild already…

Purple haze

Häagen-Dazs Limited Edition Blueberry Crumble Ice Cream is very pretty, that’s for sure.  Light purple ice cream with specks of fresh blueberry and visible cobbler pieces.

Creamy scoopness!

Fresh blueberries

As you dig deeper, large frozen blueberries are revealed along with big chunks of cobbler crust.  Yummy looking.

Big ol berry

Big ol cobbler pieces!

I took a big spoonful of this Häagen-Dazs Limited Edition Blueberry Crumble Ice Cream, and slurped. And the taste was divine.

The ice cream: a very smooth blueberry taste, and very strong and immediate.  Blueberry flavor tickles every part of your mouth, and it melts, the creaminess of the ice cream comes through to mix with the fruit taste.  Whereas I usually don’t love the mix of dairy and blueberry, the coldness if the ice cream made the combo extremely tasty, as it really accentuated the sweetness of the berry.  The cold berry taste with the creamy ice cream fused to form a very refreshing bite.

The cobbler pieces were plentiful and crunchy, and didn’t overpower the flavor of the ice cream.  The pieces weren’t sweet at all – they were merely buttery, and provided a nice crunchy texture contrast for the smooth ice cream. They chewed easily too – the cobbler pieces weren’t overly frozen rocks at all.  The butter kept them nice and limber.

All together, this smooth, sweet, and crunchy treat was really good. This wasn’t ice cream made to taste like blueberry crumble, like an ice cream that claims to be Tiramasu but just tastes like coffee ice cream. No, this was an blueberry crumble IMAGINED AS ice cream. Really spot-on. Nice work, Häagen-Dazs.

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Will you join in my goal for complete e-kipple domination and unsubscribe glory?  Let me know!  And let’s make 2012 uncluttered so we can have plenty of room for junk food.

Any thoughts? Tell me in the comments below or hit me on Twitter @junkfoodguy or on my Facebook Page.

Sincerely, Junk Food Guy