I still say that my ice cream maker is the best small kitchen appliance I've ever purchased. I remember the first summer after my daughter was diagnosed with a peanut allergy. She was still very little and was sitting in the basket at the grocery store as I gazed through the glass doors in the freezer section at an entire aisle full of ice cream choices, each and every carton bearing the same words: "May contain traces of peanuts and tree nuts."
I'd never really thought about ice cream before that, and for a brief moment my heart sank. What would a childhood without ice cream be like? I say "brief" because it only took a matter of minutes to leave the store, walk to the kitchenwares shop across the street and buy an ice cream maker. All the while reliving childhood memories of summers spent swatting mosquitos while endlessly cranking my parents' antique machine, taking turns with my brother until it got too hard for either of us to churn and my dad would take over to finish it off. How hard could making ice cream be these days? As soon as I got to the car, I pulled out the recipe book that came with the instructions and walked right back into the grocery store to buy the ingredients. And I've never looked back. It turns out it's not hard at all. Actually, with a good ice cream maker, it's one of the easiest desserts to make.