Tina Fey's Liz Lemon abides by a diet that is notoriously unhealthy, and often on the outer boundaries of "food." She famously received a false positive on a pregnancy test after gorging on "Sabor de Soledad" cheese-puffs, a fictional Mexican snack made with evaporated bull semen. She composed a song dedicated to "night cheese," the cheese she ate on her couch at night. In the episode "Sandwich Day," Lemon eats tinfoil, because it is acting as a barrier between her and a sandwich.
So, when Ben & Jerry's announced plans to release a commemorative 30 Rock ice cream flavor, fans psyched themselves up for the bizarre: a sweet dessert with the tang of extra-sharp cheddar. That offered flakes of tinfoil covered in chocolate. Is bull semen a legal ingredient in the United States? We couldn't wait to find out.
Instead, we get Gwyneth Paltrow-flavored ice cream.
Ben & Jerry's "Liz Lemon" is fancy. It is ostentatiously refined. It is probably a little mean, but not in a way that's openly hostile, just, like, sort of patronizing, and braggy, and "Oh, wow, I have a really similar top in silk but yours is too cute. I love how your style is so casual."
For starters, it's not even ice cream. It's frozen yogurt—ice cream's healthier, more mature, slightly aloof older stepsister. (Technically, it's Greek frozen yogurt, like Tina Fey is a Greek frozen American.)
It's also lemon-flavored, which, OK, it would be hard to get around that one.
But the lemon base is complemented with "a blueberry lavender swirl." What?
Lavender is right up their with opium poppies and marijuana trees in the pantheon of nature's most relaxing plants. The entire plot of the 30 Rock series finale revolves around the fact that Liz Lemon is psychologically incapable of relaxation. And blueberries? When has that woman ever eaten a fruit that wasn't made out of gummy?
Let's be clear: this frozen yogurt is probably delicious. It probably tastes very elegant, like something Tina Fey would serve in her swanky Upper West Side apartment to subtly remind you that, in real life, she is not like you—a slovenly fast food junkie who wears pajamas to dinner dates—but a very wealthy famous person.
A portion of the profits from the froyo (which hits Ben & Jerry's shops in February, and grocery stores soon after) will benefit Jumpstart, a non-profit that supports early education in low-income neighborhoods, so it's hard to hate on it.
But let's be real. Liz Lemon is way more likely to wolf down pints of vanilla-and-rum flavored Schweddy Balls than this.
[via Ben & Jerry's]