Chobani
I was poking my head around my friend Claire’s refrigerator the other day just to see what was in there when, behold: an orange cup with a Chobani label on it.
Upon closer inspection, I read the words “pumpkin spice flavored.”
I wheeled around to look at Claire, confused and disgusted.
“It looked really good!” she said defensively. “And it was on sale!”
After making fun of her for a solid five minutes, I gave in to curiosity. It was agreed that we’d try the cup of yogurt as true friends do: together.
A few days later, Claire peeled back the Chobani label in my apartment. I sniffed the yogurt. I didn’t care if it was gross.
Did I judge the yogurt? Of course I did. The pumpkin spice phase, in my opinion, has become overblown and trite this year. Pumpkin spice candles? OK. Pumpkin spice M&M’s? Eh. Pumpkin pie Pop-Tarts? No, thanks. Pumpkin spice Chobani Greek yogurt? NO. Pumpkin spice is good, but not that good. I like the taste, sure, but it’s the principle. Let’s be diverse, America, and use the other wonderful fall flavors instead of relying on one.
Also, the concept is a bit ridiculous. Greek yogurt is an overwhelming phenomenon in itself, healthy, delicious and also creamily rich. You can’t take too many spoonfuls of that at once. That, mixed with a pumpkin flavor, I figured, would be enough to make my stomach hurt.
Claire and I clinked our spoons together and dug in. First, there was a pumpkin taste, but it was soon overhauled by spice, like a nutmeg flavor that overcame any pumpkin reservations I had at the start.
And unlike regular Chobani, this yogurt was smoother, with more of a standard Yoplait feel than that of creamy Greek. There was none of that fruit-on-bottom stuff, either — the spice was all mixed into the yogurt. We had a couple more spoonfuls.
I’ll admit it: I was pleasantly surprised. Would I buy the pumpkin spice limited-batch yogurt every day? No. Would I get a dozen because they were on sale? No.
But for one afternoon in my apartment with my good friend, it was pretty wonderful. Lessons learned: Claire’s food instincts are always correct, and my taste buds had better get used to pumpkin spice everything.
