Awe in Mouth

In case you were wondering, this is the trendy week to have the flu. What can I say, all the cool kids are doing it, and when there's a good trend, I just can't help myself.
Ok, so, that last sentence is entirely untrue. But the part about the flu is pretty accurate.
Wanted to pass along a couple of super-important bits of information:
The first... I am now a daring baker. Oh, yes. (Do you even know how long I've been waiting to describe myself in such an awesome way?? Ten billion years or thereabouts, I would say). I've actually just last night signed up to be a Daring Baker. There will be more on that later, when challenges actually roll around, but for now, I'll be all glowy with the thought of actually joining myself to other bloggers in some way.
The second is Luna & Larry's. I tend to shy away from product reviews, mainly because I'm just plain not interested in them, but Coconut Bliss, as the word "Bliss" implies, really needs a shout-out. They, and their lovely dessert, are all from my hometown of Eugene, Oregon, which is pretty damn cool in and of itself. I remember a few years ago when they started up, and all of a sudden Sundance was posting signs for having sold out, and Sweet Life was judging them good enough to sell right next to their gelato. Despite all of this, I'd never actually tried Coconut Bliss until I wandered into my local co-op last week and wasn't able to get the phrase "Cinnamon Chocolate Flake" out of my brain. I bought it, pulled out a spoon and... was sadly disappointed. I'm going to blame this one on my penchant for ice cream (in all its dairy-having glory), but the Bliss seemed a little, well, anemic would be a good word for it. Thin, and without anything in it to pack a real oomph. I was disappointed, but, shamefully, not incredibly surprised. However, if there's anything my hippie roots will lead me to do, it's to give a vegan product a second try. And so, half an hour later, I was back at my freezer, spoon in hand, and awe in mouth.

(Picture ruthlessly abducted from www.coconutbliss.com, but used with only the best of intentions)
I think the reason that the Bliss is so good (besides the obvious marketing tactic of its name) is because it's less sweet than normal ice creams. Most of the sweetness comes from the coconut itself, and the rest comes from agave syrup, which means that the flavor is much more complex than the normal pint of, say, Ben and Jerry's. It's one of those desserts that feels natural and good, in that it's still, you know, a completely decadent dessert, but it doesn't feel like someone picked up a bag of sugar and ten bags of candy and poured them together for your enjoyment (because, honestly, I of course enjoy those ice creams, too). It's also not a vegan replacement-for-something-better dessert (I hate those). It's lovely entirely in its own right. And I'll say it again a few more times: the flavor is complex. Complex, complex, complex. Complexity is the key word here.
My other worry with a coconut milk-based dessert was that it would taste too tropical, like a Piña Colada or other. Nope. Wrong. The first few bites are a bit strong on the coconut flavor, but them it's just creamy and just sweet enough and flavored with spicy cinnamon and... mmhm. Just go buy some. (I'm not even taunting you with some hippie Oregon product; if you live in Oregon, Washington, Northern California, Hawai'i, Alaska, Montana, or Idaho, there is Luna and Larry's being sold somewhere in your state. That should really motivate you to go on a grand treasure hunt, stat). I'll leave you with the parting inspirational statement that, if I'm encouraging you to buy a product that needs to have its main ingredient (coconut [milk]) shipped from halfway across the world (Thailand), then it's got to be damn good.