must. have. mashti.

A few months ago I was wandering down the frozen food aisle at the Petaluma Whole Foods, when I came across the best ice cream ever: Mashti Malone in Turkish coffee flavor.

I've loved coffee ice cream ever since I was a little kid (if you send me one of those e-mail surveys that asks what my favorite flavor of ice cream is, I always put down some variation of coffee), and this is by far the best coffee ice cream I've ever had. It actually tastes like coffee. It's not overly sweet like Ben & Jerry's. And it's not overly creamy like Häagen-Dazs. (I know a lot of people think Häagen-Dazs makes the best coffee ice cream, but I think it tastes more like a latte than actual straight coffee -- there's just so much cream in it. If you have really good, high-quality coffee -- which I am lucky to have here at home since a certain person is absolutely obsessed with coffee and has started roasting his own beans and grinding everything fresh in his favorite toy the Burr grinder and making coffee by the individual cup instead of in a machine by the pot -- you realize that really good coffee doesn't need lots of cream and sugar. In fact, the perfect cup won't need anything at all because the coffee is already naturally flavorful and complex.)

Mashti Malone's Turkish coffee ice cream is like really good coffee. There's a smokiness to it, a rich earthiness. And while it does have a creamy texture (this is ice cream, after all), it's like just a spot of cream instead of lots and lots of frothy hot milk and sugar. Seriously, Mashti Malone is so freaking good.

Which is why I just about died when I went back to Whole Foods about two weeks ago and couldn't find it anywhere. Yes, there was the lavender flavor and I think maybe the pomegranate sorbet, but no Turkish coffee. I wanted to cry.

Instead, I e-mailed both Whole Foods and Mashti Malone and told them I really love the Turkish coffee ice cream and am somewhat obsessed with it. And I asked Whole Foods to bring it back. And I asked Mashti Malone if the ice cream is available anywhere else. (By the way, did you know you can actually order it online on the Mashti Malone site? And they actually ship it to you with a bunch of dried ice. I haven't tried it -- yet -- but that's what the Mashti Malone people told me.)

I got e-mails from three people -- the customer service person at Mashti Malone, the sales rep for Mashti Malone and the ice cream buyer at Whole Foods' Petaluma store.

And my fabulous ice cream is back on the shelf. And I picked some up today. And it is good.

So. Damn. Good.