I live in a large city, and ice cream options are plentiful. If I want to spend a mint on a mint chocolate parfait, I can go to one of the high end restos or hotels. If I want accessible artisan ice creams, I can get those for a high price in a lot of local neighborhoods. If I want any degree of frozen treat from a package, there are supermarkets and corner stores around everywhere. If I want a question mark of oils and chemicals topped with hot fudge, I can go to a fast food place. Like I say, the options are plentiful, and there’s going to be something to fit my price range.

I’ve found myself going to the beach a lot in recent years, and when I returned, I usually wanted a cool, high-calorie treat. Especially after playing lots of frisbee. I found myself going to the same place every time, and it was a fast food place, and the thing I got was the mess of chemicals and oils. To make matters worse, it came in a multi-part single-use plastic container with a big bad disposable plastic spoon.

They were soooooooo good, but at some point I had to stop. I kept thinking that not only was this bad for me, and for the environment, but I could probably make better ice cream at home. Things in my life had been stressful during that period, and I felt I could probably spend a lot on ice cream. I started looking at machines online, figuring out which one was best, and finally pulled the trigger.

It was a rough start, where I had no idea what I was doing for a while. I made two soupy messes for a close friend the first time out. Timing was a problem. Lots of things were a problem, and I can see a lot of people getting frustrated and giving up. But when the first really good batch appeared after only a few days, I knew I was onto something.

There are other really great reasons to make your own ice cream. If you’re like me, you like to experiment, and try a lot of different flavours, some of which can’t be bought. You might want to cut down on packaging, and re-use containers (that’s also me). Or you may have an allergy to something common, like peanuts (me again!) and making your own desserts makes sure you can eat desserts at all. Finally, you can bring the cost down on something that can be very expensive, but keep it high quality all the time. What could be better than premium ice cream on demand?

The best thing about making my own ice cream is going out shopping and seeing something weird or wonderful to try. I live in an excellent place for seasonal fruit, so just getting the fresh-picked, sun-seduced, deep-sugary berries makes my mouth water. But those are the tip of the iceberg. The same goes for the supermarkets, where a new variety of sandwich cookies is maybe just an aisle away. It’s tough to go wrong with sandwich cookies in ice cream. Even beets could evoke a dreamy sunny day.

Knowing that I can take this stuff home and turn it into a dessert that I like, and almost everybody around me likes, is great stuff. I can also preserve a summer moment, or capture the fleeting glory of a kind of sandwich cookie that was tried once, and was too weird to ever do again.