Pre-amble: This is going to be a rather long blog post. We took more than 600 photos yesterday and even after all the sorting, deleting, and editing, we still ended up with quite a number of photos. Hence, we have consolidated some of the photos into collages for easy viewing.
Yesterday, we were at the Ben & Jerry’s Scoop Shop at VivoCity for the Couch Potato Ice Cream Workshop with Ben & Jerry’s Flavour Guru, Peter Lind, and it was a very insightful session. Couch Potato is the latest Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavour that is launching here in Singapore and during the workshop with Peter, we learnt about the secrets that went behind the creation of Couch Potato.

In case you didn’t know, Ben & Jerry’s Scoop Shop at VivoCity underwent a major facelift and we really like the newly decorated place. With its more cosy, clean, and colourful furniture and fixtures, the Ben & Jerry’s Scoop Shop at VivoCity is definitely a chic place for some awesome Ben & Jerry’s ice creams!

Kenneth, the Brand Champion for Ben & Jerry’s, gave his opening address before the workshop with Peter Lind.

Peter made quite a surprising entrance when he played on his harmonica and welcomed us to the workshop.

Peter explained to us that the idea behind the creation of Couch Potato was a rather elaborate one. There were many experiments that had to be carried out to perfect the Couch Potato and in this photo, you will see Peter dipping a potato chip into a cup of milk. This was done to put across the point that potato chips would absorb moisture and turn soggy when submerged in liquid. As such, when Peter was creating the Couch Potato, he had to find a solution that would prevent the potato chips from turning soggy. Hence, this was how the idea of a chocolate-coated potato chip came about.

Even then, the idea was still in its infancy stage as there are many different types of flavoured potato chips. After tasting for ourselves the various chocolate-coated potato chips in different flavours, we concluded that the chocolate-coated classic potato chip was the best. As potato chips are quite brittle and fragile to be mixed into ice cream, Peter then came up with the idea of grounding the potato chips, forming them into a spherical shape, and then finally coating it with chocolate. This made the chocolate-coated potato chip clusters rather sturdy to be mixed into the ice cream without becoming soggy.

During the workshop, Jacqueline also had the rare opportunity to assist Peter in making the Couch Potato which we happily ate on the spot! Nothing beats freshly made ice cream!

Couch Potato, a wacky, chunky, and funky concoction that features vanilla ice cream with a salty caramel swirl and chocolatey potato chip clusters.

Ben & Jerry’s is all about Peace, Love, and Ice Cream!

At the workshop, Peter also showed us how quality checks are done on Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and he literally saw pints of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream into half. He showed us what makes a good pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and really, we were quite amazed at the stringent requirements that Ben & Jerry’s has for their ice cream. The next time you buy a pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, you can be rest assured that you’re getting high quality ice cream all the way from Vermont, USA!

After the workshop with Peter, we were very privileged to bring him on a Singapore Food Inspiration Tour together with 4 other Bloggers.

The first stop was to Thye Moh Chan and it was led by GNineThree. There, Peter tried a couple of tau sar piah that came with different fillings. For those of you whom are unfamiliar with the tau sar piah, it is actually a flaky pastry and it is a Chinese delicacy. Apart from the tau sar piah, Peter also had the kaya toast bread from Toast Box.

The second stop was to Ah Hung Company where Peter had his first experience with the durian. There, I introduced the durian to Peter and though he was initially quite apprehensive about trying it, he was actually quite surprised that the experience wasn’t so bad after all. We also introduced some other local tropical fruits to Peter and he was quite pleased with the dragonfruit and the mangosteen. With that said, the XO durian that we had didn’t come cheap. It cost a staggering $132 and the XO durian weighed about 4+KG!

Peter’s expression when trying the durian.

The third stop was to Sinma Frog Porridge and Melicacy led the tour. Though it wasn’t Peter’s first experience with frog legs, he enjoys the frog leg porridge very much. Personally, we liked it too as the frog legs were chewy and tender and the sauce complemented the entire dish really well.

The fourth stop was to Bedok Central Hakwer Centre and there, both DarrenSim and YummyFoodBook introduced the chendol and the rojak to Peter.

Apart from the chendol, Peter also had a taste of some other local desserts such as the almond paste, pulut hitam, soya beancurd, and even the goreng pisang! Peter was also given a bottle of gula melaka which he could bring back to his laboratory and experiment with new flavours!

Peter shared with us that he handles spice really well and he enjoyed the rojak even though it was slightly spicy. He found the cucumbers and pineapples rather refreshing and he even candidly told us that he might want to work on the cucumber sorbet that he previously experimented with.

Honestly, we were indeed privileged to have such an upclose and personal session with Peter! He was so accommodating and extremely friendly, and we really do hope that he returns to Singapore again!

We concluded the whole event with Peter presenting hampers to everyone of us. The hampers came with Ben & Jerry’s merchandise and to top it off, Ben & Jerry’s Singapore gave us a year’s supply of Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream! We were indeed feeling extremely euphoric!

This Saturday, Ben & Jerry’s Singapore is organising Singapore’s biggest ice cream festival, the ChunkFest! It will be held at The Promontory @ Marina Bay from 2pm to 10pm and admission is FREE! There, you will be able to enjoy exclusive Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavours specially shipped in from the US for the event, participate in euphoric carnival activities, and catch the ever popular Vermonster Challenge!

Also, for the first time at ChunkFest, you can also enjoy an evening movie screening with your loved ones over a cup of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream! So, if you’re planning a romantic date, don’t forget to purchase the Moovie Pack which consist of a complimentary scoop of ice cream, picnic mat, flip-flops, and tote bag; all for only $12 and 50% of the proceeds will go towards Ben & Jerry’s Fairness Partners such as Blessings in A Bag, Chris Café @ The Hub, Dyslexia Association of Singapore, Kerbside Gourmet, and Project Happy Feet!

If you feel lucky enough, you might want to check out GNineThree’s Blog as they are giving away 6X Moovie Packs!

[Image Credits to Ben & Jerry’s Singapore]

As for us, we’re going to slurp down the 13 exclusive flavours of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream from the US that are only available on that day itself! There’s Candy Bar Pie, White Russian, Banana Peanut Butter Greek Yoghurt, Chocolate Peppermint Crunch, Karamel Sutra, Peach Cobbler and so much more!

Before we end off this blog entry, we would like to share the joy of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream with all you readers and that is, we will be giving away 5X Pints of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream [any flavour of your choice] which are redeemable only at Ben & Jerry’s Scoop Shop at VivoCity.

All you have to do is:

1. Like Our Facebook Page @ http://www.facebook.com/awinsomelife

2. Like, Share, and Tag 5 Friends In This Picture, with the Comment; “Join Me @ the Ben & Jerry’s ChunkFest 2013 that is happening at The Promontory @ Marina Bay this Saturday and help me look for @awinsomelife”.

3. Head down to Chunkfest 2013 and be the first 5 to hunt us down to collect the “Free Pint Voucher” from us this Saturday at ChunkFest 2013!

See you at Ben & Jerry’s Chunkfest 2013 at The Promontory @ Marina Bay!