My wife claims that I only got engaged so that we could register for all kinds of nifty cooking tools. There’s some truth to her argument. I mean had I known that in exchange for uttering three simple words people I haven’t seen since my Bar Mitzvah would send cooking toys off of a pre- selected list of my choosing, I would have gotten engaged over and over again. I mean how cool is that? So my bride to be was shocked when after signing up for three different blenders, six graters and nine chef’s knives I absolutely refused to register for the ice cream maker. I was as adamant as I was wrong.

Here’s the thread of my broken logic. The very first gift to be delivered by the UPS man to every engaged couple since the history of engaged couples is the ice cream maker. Everyone registers for it and it’s the first thing people want to buy. I mean who doesn’t like ice cream. But ask any married couple how many times have they actually used the ice cream maker and one-hundred-and-one times out of a hundred the answer is once. So I assumed the damn things didn’t work. I was wrong and I fully admit it. The machines work fine. The recipes were the problem.

So although the experienced user may want to make the perfect custard following exacting specifications spelled out by the zealots from the ice cream intelligentsia, I simply toss a few eggs yolks, some cream, sugar and flavoring into a sauce pan, add a little heat, pour the mixture into the machine, hit the start button and enjoy baby, enjoy.

Oh and by the way, when my wife got pregnant I finally broke down and bought a fancy ice cream maker. I made one batch and discovered that she was the first woman in the history of birthing to develop an aversion to ice cream while pregnant. So not only did I have to pay for what I could have gotten for free but also it then sat fallow for nine long months.