"I gotta make some changes. I'm not a woman. I'm a child. What kind of life is this?"
- Elaine Benes, Seinfeld, 1995

My thoughts mirrored Elaine's (substitute 'man' for 'woman' please) as I scooped mint chocolate chip ice cream into the middle of a split choc chip cupcake (recipe found here) in order to make a pseudo-ice cream sandwich. Are you kidding me? Doesn't this amount to playing with my food?! What's next, I'm gonna borrow an Easy Bake Oven?! Compounding my confliction was the fact that exactly one night previous, Steph and I both had already partaken in this same activity. But now, alone, deep in the shadows and still of the night, I found myself carving out delicate blades of minty green, gently layering onto cushions of chocolately goodness. Alas, in a matter of seconds, all that remained (after my final bit of self respect evaporated) was a longing for, to quote Billy Idol’s ‘Rebel Yell’, "more, more, more"...

I decided to distract myself with another ponderous point: is mint chocolate chip supposed to be white or green? As a rather husky youngster, I recall summer trips to the ice cream stand; but depending on which place we patronized, the color of said ice cream varied. It seemed the name changed too, the 'mint' alternately jumping (like Frogger) from the beginning to the end of the posted moniker, and back again… Does any of this even matter? Probably not (I am a realist), but interestingly, my rant is justified (albeit creepily) by IceCream.com: "as a Mint Chocolate Chip lover, you tend to be ambitious and confident… yet a little skeptical about life." Hmmmm… (By the way, to find out your Ice Cream Flavorology (is that a word?) check out this)

In the 80's (I have heard), a hilarious politically- and socially-minded cartoon strip named 'Bloom County' by Berkeley Breathed featured, among an array of motley characters, Opus the penguin. A gentle soul, Opus often found solace from the less-than-ideal world we inhabit by plopping himself into nature’s womb to refresh and renew his spirit. Maybe these ice cream sammies were just my version of Opus' 'dandelion break', seeing how it's never going to get warm enough here in Western NY for dandelions...

P.S. Maybe next time I'll actually cook… if you’re good!