Candied Bacon Ice Cream??

Before we left for our trip, I vowed to eat my way through the south.  I love so many aspects of southern food, from barbecue to gumbo, and I had done a bit of plotting before we left to see what kinds of dining options we'd have on the Island. 

In reality, however, we didn't eat out all that much, and when we did we certainly tried to keep it cost-effective.  Funny how we ended up in not one, but two places that had been featured in Food Network's Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, Southern Soul BBQ in St. Simons, and Penguin in Charlotte, NC.  Southern Soul had amazing bbq, and some seriously kick-butt fried green beans (I think these may have been the only vegetable Samantha ate all week...), and Penguin had its famous fried pickles, recommended by my blog pal, Meriah.  Delicious!!  Steve refused to try the pickles (or the green beans, for that matter), and Samantha immediately turned her nose up at the pickels, saying, "Yuck!"  I did manage to con her into eating two of them before she decided, once again, that they were "yucky."  Ahhhh, children...

Another location of good eats on our trip was Zuzu's on the Island, where I had a burger topped with fried green tomatoes, and a side of sweet potato fries (oh yeah, Samantha ate those, too). 

On our last night in Georgia, we decided to vary a bit from our usual visit to Dairy Queen, and stopped by the tiny and eclectic-looking shop called Moo Cow.  Expecting your traditional hard-ice cream options, we were in for a bit of a surprise when we were greeted first with a case containing such dairy delicacies as Gorgonzola, Sweet Corn and Blueberry-Brie-Peppercorn flavored ice cream.  Especially shocking was the Candied Bacon flavor.  Knowing that I wouldn't be able to handle the weight of my conscience if I didn't do it, I had to sample the Gorgonzola (mmmm...surprisingly not bad!) and the Candied Bacon (ewwww, gross!  Nothing like chewy bits of bacon in your ice cream...yuck...), but eventually settled on a more traditional Salted Caramel (yum!).  I selected Strawberry Buttermilk for Samantha (chocolate and vanilla were conspicuously absent), and Steve abstained altogether, a bit disappointed that he couldn't get his frozen slushy drink from DQ.  I did discover, however, that Samantha's palate is pretty much limited to soft serve, so after a few bites, she proclaimed her loud, "yuck!", accompanied by her soon-to-be-trademarked squinching of the face, and pushed her dish away.  I offered to trade with her.  A few bites of my ice cream elicited the same response from her.  Impossible, I know.

Certainly notmykid...

And speaking of my kid and completely unrelated to this post, here's a quick pic from yesterday of Samantha Puddleduck.  We've been feeling a bit waterlogged the last few days with all of the rain from what's left of Tropical Storm Whatshisname, but at least one of us is outfitted for it!  Sadly I couldn't get a photo outside with her adorable Dora umbrella up, walking to school because it was raining a bit too hard to risk damaging the camera.