Bear Essentials: Ice Cream ( + Chocolate-Cinnamon Gelato with Toffee Bits )

The first sentence I wrote for this post was "Chocolate and Cinnamon want to be boyfriends, and I am all too happy to oblige."  

I didn't have a political motive for making them boyfriends.  The sentence just sounded cleaner than it would have if I'd used "boyfriend and girlfriend."  But as I looked at it I realized that it might sound opinionated, and that homophobic readers could be offended.  Then I spent some time thinking how nice it is when you find an unexpected benefit to something you were already doing.

I'm petty that way.

At this point, I had drifted reasonably far from the original point I'd been trying to make, which is that cinnamon and chocolate pair wonderfully together.

Logically-ordered storytelling is not my specialty.

Bear Essentials: Ice Cream ( + Meyer Lemon Cardamom Ice Cream )

For a long time, I thought Meyer Lemons were a thing that Martha Stewart had mostly made up.  You know, like making handmade doilies out of banana peels or raising special breeds of chickens because you have time in the morning to savor your eggs long enough to notice the tiny difference in taste between one breed's and another.  Something potentially real, but so rare or fussy or prohibitively expensive that only my gal Martha would use them to make a freaking pound cake.  I knew that I was about as likely to see them in my own grocery store as I was to see those pale blue hen's eggs.  And I was right.

Bear Essentials: Ice Cream ( + Lucky Charms Ice Cream )

If you give a bear this recipe...
She'll need to make it STAT.
She'll dig an ancient box of Lucky Charms out of the pantry,
And hunched over two bowls like some obsessive-compulsive gargoyle, 
She'll separate the marshmallows from the cereal.
And then she'll make this ice cream.
And eat.
And eat.
And eat.

Bear Essentials: Ice Cream ( + Raspberry Gelato )

Remember how I told you yesterday that I like loud flavors?

And you know how ice cream has a tendency to...soften the flavor of whatever's in it?  Sort of...dairify it?

Gelato is the magical answer to that problem.

Bear Essentials: Ice Cream ( + Pistachio Ice Cream )

I've been perfectly up-front with you about my obsession with ice cream.

It's a sweet, sweet sickness.

So what better topic to share with you in this sweltering month of July?  This week, I'll be sharing 5 exceedingly excellent recipes for frozen treats.