vanilla sky

Ever since I can remember, I've been a vanilla girl.

I felt like I was the only one: everyone, every child at least, loved chocolate. I remember a photo of my kid sister, as a baby, naked on the kitchen floor, practically sitting inside a metal bowl of chocolate pudding. When I absolutely had to eat chocolate, I'd choose white chocolate, because it looked like vanilla.

I love vanilla.

Now, of course, I love chocolate, too - especially dark chocolate, and specifically, dark chocolate with salted caramel. But I'm going thru a kind of vanilla renaissance. In fashion: despite (or perhaps, because) it's been so wintry this spring, I've been defiantly wearing top to toe white and cream and shades of vanilla.

In baking, like my vanilla coconut lime baked ricotta cheesecakes (my recipe).

In film: I just saw Vanilla Sky recently - I hadn't liked it the first time, but I've ordered it to see again with my husband. And now the  The Body Shop is launching a line of Eau de Toilette fragrances, and I've just tried their vanilla scent. It's very good.

Vanilla is a tricky scent: it can come off as cheap, sugary, but this has a lovely kind of fresh, floral quality, and it wears well on my skin. After a bit, it settles down to almost pure vanilla. Not surprising, considering they're using good quality ingredients, and pure vanilla extract. I keep smelling my wrist and getting hungry.

Now I can't wait to try some of the other scents, like pink grapefruit (another obsession, especially when I'm in a tropical place), moringa, which is a floral, mango, and of course, my other favourite white food flavour, coconut. If only they come out with a lime version, and I'll be essentially wearing my cheesecake.