The Real Thing

Can ice cream ever really be replaced?

Illustration by Robyn Jordan

For the longest time, all I ever really craved was frozen yogurt. I discovered the great big world of frozen yogurt while in college, when we still thought that neon-green whiskey sours were drop-dead amazing, pizza should only be eaten from Cosmo’s at three a.m., and Rolling Rock was still an acceptable beer to drink outside a game of beer pong.

We’d schlep over to the nearest frozen yogurt stand on Boulder, Colorado’s Pearl Street, usually hungover in our sweatpants and North Face jackets, and load up our no-calorie, non-fat, regret-free frozen yogurt with every imaginable topping. How could you possibly say no to chocolate chip cookie dough, brownie bites, sprinkles, gummy bears? (Actually, we learned never to put gummy bears in frozen yogurt. They freeze too quickly and become rocks in your mouth.) It hit the spot. It was all we needed.

Frozen yogurt was a safe choice. Frozen yogurt didn’t pile on the pounds like ice cream did. Frozen yogurt didn’t assau…