We All Scream For Ice Cream!

With spring well and truly upon us and summer following not too far behind, I have been noticing a lot of recipes for ice cream lately in both my cookbooks and magazine subscriptions. So, I thought to myself a couple of weeks ago that it would be cool (no pun intended) to have an ice cream maker to produce some of these yummy delicacies. Well, that's easy you say...just go out and buy one. Surely they can't be that expensive and in no time you could be whipping up a host of gourmet yogurts, creams and sorbets.

Not so fast though, my friends....I have 2 problems with this theory. The first being that after looking around at the prices of these contraptions, I wasn't sure I was ready to fork over that much cash for them. Not that they are that expensive....seems around $60 is about average...but that brings me to my second issue. Would I use it enough? Would it face the ugly fate of other kitchen appliances that exist in a seldom mentioned corner of the kitchen...the appliance grave!!! (Insert spooky laugh/thunder and lightning.....ok, you get the point). Once prized possessions such as the Breville juicer and slow cooker have made their way into that much maligned cupboard in the corner and others (like the ice tea maker that hubby can't bare to part with from his bachelor days) just seemed to have slunk there on their own, seeming to know that they were never loved in the first place....at least not by me. Sure, these appliance ghosts may rise from the grave perhaps once a year, kind of like the ghouls on Halloween, but they inevitably make their way back for another long slumber....just taking up precious space in our tiny kitchen.

Well, then just throw them out, or give them away, I hear you say.....but the inevitable reply is always...."but I might want to use it sometime in the distant future!". Even as you speak the words, you know they are a lie, however you also know that you cannot bare to part with an appliance that you spent your good, hard earned cash on....even if it was only a few dollars. Yes this is irrational, but you know you do it too.....you know you too, have an appliance grave somewhere in your kitchen. And if you say you don't, you're lying!...haha

I would like to think that an ice cream maker would not suffer this cruel fate, but how could I be sure. Was I willing to risk the $60 to find out? Up until last night, I believe the answer to that question was no. However, as fate would have it, I happened to be perusing the goods in Williams Sonoma (and when I say perusing, of course I mean I was drooling over them) last night when my eye caught a flash of red in the distance. Upon closer inspection, I was delighted to see that it was a sales sticker....a rare creature to be found in a Williams Sonoma store....but not only was it a sales sticker, it was a sales sticker attached to an ice cream maker!!! It was so serendipitous that of course I had to buy it. I mean, 50% off, how could I not? So the wonderful contraption that can churn out such delicious, frozen delicacies as gelato, frozen yogurt, sorbet and good 'ol ice cream, made its way onto my amex card and into my kitchen. Let's hope it doesn't make its way into the grave and that we will be enjoying the fruits of its labor for many years to come!!

Yay for ice cream !!! :)