Afternoon buzz...

For lunch I had a fried goat cheese and fennel salad with arugula and honey mustard balsamic dressing. It was delicious. There is no photographic evidence of it because it was a networking lunch and whipping out my iPhone would have been inappropriate. But I ate it, trust me.

And drank this afterward:

Back when these were new and trendy I used to drink them every now and then. I saw it in the grocery store yesterday and thought, Yes, I can have that now! I have a feeling there will be many more such revelations in the near future.

Nutella mousse. Yes, please.

My husband has had enough ice cream for the time being. I bet he never thought I'd type those words, but there they are. So over the weekend when we were watching Symon's Suppers and saw Michael Symon make Chocolate-Hazelnut-Espresso Mousse, I had to replicate.

The recipe calls for instant espresso. We could not locate. It calls for bananas, but I am not marring delicious mousse with bananas, thank you very much. It also calls for toasted hazelnuts and whipped cream on top, but when I tasted the amazingness of the mousse... well, I ate it without giving the hazelnuts (or whipped cream) another thought.

This recipe was just too easy. Use an electric mixer to mix 1/2 cup of Nutella into 1 cup of heavy cream until soft peaks form. Cool in the fridge for 2 hours. Try not to eat it all by yourself.

A 'miracle' of sorts

A few weeks ago my husband brought home a pint of Ben & Jerry's Phish Food. We occasionally indulged in ice cream, so long as I had enough Lactaid pills (by enough, I mean at least eight) being doctor-diagnosed as lactose intolerant over 10 years ago (really. I took the test).

On this night, I had no pills. Not wanting to miss out on the deliciousness, craving some of that chocolately goodness, I decided to throw caution to the wind. I had no reaction.

Was that a fluke? I decided to test it out by drinking a small bottle of Ronnybrook chocolate milk the next day. Again, no reaction. Could it be? Was I cured?

Over the next week or so, it was ice cream every day. Ben & Jerry's, Haagen-Dazs, Blue Marble. I had Carvel chocolate soft-serve in a waffle cone at a Yankee game.

So here I am. Making up for 10 years of not eating dairy. It's hard work, but I'm not complaining.