Craving Creme d'or Sicilia

After buying a 1.5 quart of Dreyer's Thin Mint ice cream at the commissary for US$3 a couple of weeks ago, I can't help but ponder the supermarket ice cream dilemma I'm faced with since moving to Switzerland.

Isaiah and I consume a lot of supermarket ice cream. I take that back, we used to consume a lot of Ben & Jerry's, Häagen-Dazs, Breyers, Dreyer's, etc. It's not that there's a lack of the good stuff here, far from it. We're just too cheap to pay for the good stuff. The budget brands are either mediocre or just awful, so we stay away because we're not that desperate. As for the top quality ice creams, they're great, but they'll cost you (unless you are lucky enough to live in a border city and you just hop on over to France, Germany, or Austria for your fix -- although we do live 10 minutes away from the Lidl in Austria, we're just lazy).

Instead of picking up a new flavor of the frozen stuff every week, ice cream is now a special treat for us, reserved for when certain brands are 20% off at the supermarkets. One particular brand we're crazy about is the Creme d'or Sicilia collection. We've tried the ricotta and marsala, strawberry-basil-lemon, and the orange-almond (not pictured). The texture is dense yet creamy, and the unique flavor combinations are quite complementary and rich.

Although the 20% discount will never compare to the steals you get in the States, the quality of Creme d'or Sicilia is well worth every rappen.

Just to give you an idea of the price differences: 1.5 quarts of Dreyer's in the U.S. will cost you $5 full price. (1.5 quarts is approximately 1.4 L, or 1400 milliliters). Here, 1000 milliliters of Creme d'or Sicilia will cost you $10.50 full price. We're paying more than double the U.S. price for almost 1/3 less ice cream!