The year is just about coming to a close. Yes, I realize we have just over two months to go, but a girl must plan accordingly. The year of no more food taboos is winding down; and I must say it has been a successful one. So successful in fact, I am finding it difficult to find foods that I do not like, or at the very least, don’t eat. So when I was at the market, and I saw a pile of fresh dates, a fruit that had typically been a foe, I decided to give them a try.

In the past, dates had been a bit much for me– too sticky, too cloyingly sweet. And that is saying something from a girl who thinks dessert after every meal, including breakfast, is appropriate. But I was desperate, not only for a new task to confront, but also for fruit. Come late October there seems to be a dearth of produce at the markets. We’re just in that intermediary time. So I extracted a stalk of fresh dates from the pile. And yes, they were sticky, but I ignored it for the sake of my stomach.

When I got home I tried just a nibble, and that nibble soon became a bite, and several dates later, I could safely say that I had been cured of the date taboo. Earthy, sweet, and buttery, like toffee, and I loved the caramel color and the delicate nature of dates. But before I could eat all of the dates on their own, I began thinking of ways that I could cook with them. I had heard about sticky toffee pudding, but I wanted something more simple– I wanted gelato.

I found this recipe on the Web, for vanilla gelato, which I followed, yet substituted real vanilla bean seeds for the extract. In the final minutes of freezing in my ice cream maker, I added chopped dates, and shavings from a rich, semi-sweet chocolate bar. It turned out ideal, luscious from the cream, chewy from the dates, and full-bodied from the chocolate. The pairing of the chocolate and the date was sublime, and the fruit remained chewy throughout the freezing process. But really, how bad can anything be when frozen in ice cream.