I have a boyfriend who is constantly away, leaving me alone for weeks and months at a time. It’s been the nature of things since we first met almost five years ago (eek!) and while I hate it, there is one occasional upside to it. Being alone, like I am right now while he’s in Italy again, means getting to call the shots on dinner every night. No questions about where the protein is or if I have a veggie to go with my main dish or if I used the butter that “tastes like chemicals.” (I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter according to my butter connoisseur boyfriend.)

Ice cream: it’s what’s for dinner

It’s not that I eat like a pig every night (or else I’d become one of those tragic people who become fused to their couches and have to have walls removed in their homes to be taken out via crane) but every once in a while when the mood strikes, and because there’s no one to stop me, I say, ” You know what? I think I’ll have ice cream for dinner tonight. Nothing else. Just ice cream.”

Who says dessert can’t be dinner?

That was tonight’s train of thought, anyway. It was actually an attempt at being healthy though, that got me there. I had dropped by West Village health food market Health & Harmony in search of something to bring home when I wandered into the freezer section. And there I saw Laloo’s goat milk ice creams, in black mission fig, no less. As if the goat milk  part wasn’t intriguing enough, I was totally sold when I saw figs involved.

So I bought it, took it home, dug a spoon into it and plopped down on the couch where I polished off the whole pint while watching the latest episode of Gossip Girl. Extra creamy and soft like a velvety frozen yogurt, with the subtle tang of goat’s milk and the jammy sweetness of  juicy, ripe figs, it was a damn fine dinner if you ask me. And with an ocean between my boyfriend and me, there was no one to tell me otherwise.