The Store-Bought Dessert Ina Garten Loves

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We're obsessed with stockpiling unknown facts about Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa. While some celebrity chefs cultivate thriving careers off a super-relatable aura, Garten has always seemed almost intimidatingly, effortlessly cool. After all, this is a woman who makes bread pudding with croissants because white bread is boring and numbers Paris and the Upper East Side among her many residences. Perhaps that's why we were so tickled by a rare moment of common ground with the Contessa. Talking to The Kitchn, Garten revealed that she absolutely loves store-bought vanilla ice cream. Were you expecting her to prefer byakuya, the world's most expensive ice cream? Us, too ... but the reality is much more pedestrian.

Garten called out widely available grocery store stalwarts Häagen-Dazs, Ben & Jerry's, and Ciao Bella for making some of her favorite vanilla ice cream. Even more surprisingly, she doesn't eat it fresh from the freezer. Instead, she prefers to pop her serving of ice cream in the microwave for just a few moments to let it melt a bit, which is such a cute and mundane detail that we literally can't handle it. Naturally, Garten dabbles in making her own ice cream, but she uses a humble Cuisinart ice cream machine — no word on the actual model — to make her own frozen desserts. We couldn't be more tickled that, just like us, Garten sometimes gets the craving for creamy vanilla ice cream and that she buys brands that we see every time we run to the supermarket for a treat!

According to a few sources, vanilla is America's favorite ice cream flavor. It's believed that, because vanilla contains what are commonly held as sweet aromatics, it enhances our perception of sugary flavors, making vanilla-based desserts (like ice cream) singularly enjoyable. Furthermore, vanilla is the perfect blank slate for pairing with fruit, chocolate, or any sort of vessel for an ice cream-based dessert, such as waffle cones, cookies for ice cream sandwiches, or even batter for fried ice cream. It may surprise you to know that what we call "vanilla ice cream" encompasses several unique flavor profiles, of which French vanilla, vanilla bean, and old-fashioned vanilla are all distinct varieties. Ever since Thomas Jefferson brought a recipe for vanilla ice cream back from France in the 18th century — the original document is stored in the Library of Congress for safekeeping! — we've been obsessed. Frankly, we don't want to hear one derogatory word about our "basic" choice.

Although vanilla is often maligned as boring, there's nothing ordinary about it. Vanilla beans contain hundreds of flavor compounds ranging from floral to spicy. As anyone who has enjoyed the experience of tasting high-quality vanilla knows, it is complex, delicate, and rich all at once. Vanilla orchids have to be hand-pollinated, and the resulting beans are precious and expensive. This proves to us that, even though Ina Garten's favorite ice cream flavor seems to be perfectly mundane, it's actually as refined as the rest of her culinary taste.