
A love for ice cream is required in my family. My grandpa Z can never resist a milkshake or sundae. My grandma Carol lives for chocolate on chocolate Haagen Dazs bars. My Uncle Lee has been known to make ice cream a main meal. And as I recently discovered, my cousins who live in Germany eagerly anticipate trips to the US, where the quality and price make ice cream a daily treat.
In my family, we’ve always had something for mint. My mom has a huge electric ice cream churn that uses rock salt and ice. Something like this but much larger. She stores it at the mountain house and we have spent many a summer’s night ignoring its rather loud buzzing sound as it works its magic on the back deck. Mint chocolate chip has almost always been the flavor found inside its massive metal canister. At some point, I began to claim that I did not like mint chocolate chip ice cream. This is not actually true. I do like it, but I tend to tire quickly of the same flavor of anything, particularly ice cream. I have many half-eaten pints in the freezer simply because I grew bored of one and decided to purchase another. However, when I pulled out my ice cream maker this summer, I decided that maybe I was overdue for an old favorite flavor.