gluten-free, dairy-free cookie dough "ice cream"

When I lived in Manhattan, I didn't spend many evenings at home. Evenings in little clubs on the Lower East Side, good sushi, and movies with friends at the Lincoln Plaza cineplex meant I came home in time to eat something and fall into bed most nights. New York is not where you live if you're a homebody.

But when Sharon moved into my apartment, we found ourselves, at least once a week, exhausted from all our adventures. That's when we'd take the elevator down to the lobby, walk across the street, and saunter into our corner bodega.

"I'm getting Cherry Garcia. What are you getting?"

I never knew. Sometimes I'd buy that too. Or Chunky Monkey. Often, it was cookie dough, though.

We'd hold the cold pints in our hands and walk into the warm night air. Up the elevator, and into her room, where we'd sit on her queen-sized bed and watch whatever bad tv presented itself on cable that night. We needed the down time.

There's something funny about my friend Sharon. She's fit and thin, in better shape than most people I know. But she has never, to my knowledge, eaten a pint of ice cream in more than one sitting. When we sat on that bed, watching movies, she always dove and scraped, swirling the spoon and lifting it to her mouth with passionate alacrity. Me? I took small bites, and tried to control myself.

She always enjoyed hers more.

But somehow, the guilt of eating an entire pint of ice cream in one sitting always stopped me from making all that goodness disappear immediately.

Until I found Purely Decadent Cookie Dough, that is.

The good folks at Turtle Mountain sent me some of their dairy-free treats to try. I have to admit -- dairy-free ice cream didn't appeal to me much. I don't have to avoid dairy. Why try the imitation stuff?

But there was gluten-free cookie dough involved. And that I don't see very often.

So I tried a spoonful. And then another. The icy part felt rich in the mouth. And the cookies? Oh, I hadn't eaten cookies in ice cream since one of those pints at the bodega.

I'm going to admit this — I ate the entire pint in one sitting.

And every time I've bought this non-dairy treat, I have done it again. That's why I don't buy it that often. Because it's clear I'm going to be imitating Sharon and sitting on the bed with my spoon, diving and scraping, and making it all disappear.

How often does gluten-free and dairy free taste like this?