Taking on the Ben and Jerry's "Vermonster"

Friday night, one of our friends ran an "ice cream crawl" for his birthday. We started at a specialty dessert restaurant called Finale in Harvard Square, moved on to local chain J.P. Lick's, and finished with the massive Ben & Jerry's "Vermonster," a mega-sundae that you need lots of help to consume. (This also spreads the obligation around a little, given the dish's amazing $35 cost!)

We got five different flavors in the big plastic tub, more than a dozen scoops of ice cream, and heaped on five toppings above and beyond the automatic hot fudge, nuts, and whipped cream. Our best topping choice was bananas (tastes great with vanilla or chocolate) and our worst was gummy bears, which freeze up and become crunchy gum, a poor texture match for the ice cream.

The picture shows me contributing my stomach to the task. It took about 40 minutes to reach the final step, a cup of syrupy soup. Fortunately, the birthday boy knocked it back without a second thought, saving us the less-than-appetizing task. The store keeper took our picture for the wall of those who'd consumed the whole thing, which always took a handful of folks, and sometimes several. (One amusing photo does show a team that failed, sad faces on display.)