Vanilla Activia Greek Yogurt

My life is breaking into small, but manageable pieces. I have a host of tiny, infinitesimally asinine issues that somehow, my psyche has been interpreting as huge and life-changing, like the fact that not one, but two pairs of leather pants I’ve purchased on eBay don’t fit correctly in the ankles, or that the candle I bought smells like cheap aftershave and makes my eyes water. The hot water tank in my complex is broken and will be fixed by tomorrow, so I have to own my rank, delicious scents and languish another day without using honey-oatmeal soap, or, horror of horrors, go to the health club to work out and use their shower.

My point is, things are awful. I have too many apartments to choose from in too many beautiful buildings before I start at my first choice of law schools, my Birkenstocks don’t perfectly match my Coach Beekman, and switching from Firefox to Chrome is taking hours with my slow internet. My mother keeps posting passive-aggressive comments on my Facebook statuses! Pandora skips! It keeps playing ‘My Girl!” I look too damned good in men’s tank tops!

At least I’m regular.

And I’m not talking regular like, middle of the adult normalcy spectrum. That ship sailed ages ago, approximately when I outed my interest in CATS the Musical. (‘Sup, Skimbleshanks!?!) No, I’m in a league with celebrities, with cinematic royalty – I’m regular, just like Jamie Lee Curtis.

This, of course, is all thanks to Activia, who may or may not be silently monitoring my credit card expenditures and trips to the grocery store, because they definitely now know how crazy I am about Icelandic and Greek yogurt. They’ve come out with a new variety of Greek Activia in four flavors and sent me a few packs to try. I decided to review vanilla, to get a sense of the changes they’ve made from their regular formula to make it more like the Greek varieties lately.

It’s certainly a tasty yogurt – and its flavor is versatile, with a rich vanilla bean creaminess. I ate it plain. I dumped fresh mango and rosemary sea salt atop it, and that only served to enhance the flavor. I’m planning on trying it in a cheesecake. I found that the texture was far preferable to regular Activia and had less of a cloying, sugary flavor, which I’ve found is all too common in other commercial yogurts. While it’s not up to the finely-crafted level of my beloved Noosa and Siggi’s, it’s definitely the best larger brand yogurt I’ve had so far. I like that the flavors are simplistic – it allows the flavors of the milk and cultures to shine through. 

Also, can we talk about the ad spot? Ms. Freaky Friday is caught cheating on her first digestive regulation lover with an anonymous Greek equivalent, then takes back Lover #1 because he (she?) changes their lineage completely. It's a classic lesson about romantic intentions- if you love something, let it go, and then change your entire genealogical background to win them back. Your ancestors will understand.