My girlfriends and I have a running list of all of the outlandish things that have happened in 2020. The list includes everything from Covid to hurricanes to a sink hole in the East Village and a giant dust cloud from the Sahara—and that was just from the beginning of this summer. There are still so many hearts aching around our country and for many different reasons. Something I have noticed about myself during this summer is that I take time to appreciate the small things more: the sun shining when I wake up, my health, the endorphin rush after finishing a workout, and of course, a great bowl of ice cream with some trash tv. It is truly the simple things.

Last summer (2019 seems like such an innocent time now, doesn’t it?) one of my co-workers and I discovered a show on Lifetime called “Marrying Millions.” Though it is considered reality TV, you can tell pretty easily that the producers have a very specific plot line in mind and feed the couples lines, which is to say that the couples starring in it are doing their best to “act naturally,” which is to say that their acting classes haven’t paid off yet. Honestly, it’s so bad, it’s good and I am not even one for reality TV. Basically, they find couples with significant age and bank account differences, mic them up, and set them up on all of these little outings to bring out their differences and cause conflict. The therapist in me cringes but the observer in me laughs hysterically. While I was watching this show and hysterically laughing last summer, I was also eating ice cream during the episode. So, in an effort to bring some normalcy into 2020, I am going to eat ice cream and watch the season two premiere of “Marrying Millions” tonight. My two greatest guilty pleasures of 2019 are helping me round out the summer of 2020. Here is the ice cream I am going to be enjoying tonight, which features another one of my guilty pleasures: Oreos! One of the things I love about this ice cream is that instead of tasting like vanilla ice cream with some cookies mixed in, the ice cream base tastes similar to the cream between the Oreos—truly delicious!

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups whole milk

• 2 cups heavy cream

• 2 teaspoons kosher salt

• 3/4 cup sugar

• 2 teaspoon vanilla

• 1 cup crushed Oreos

Method:

1. Freeze ice cream maker bowl at 0 degrees for 24 hours.

2. In a large bowl combine, milk, sugar, and salt. Stir together until sugar and salt are dissolved.

3. Add in cream and vanilla extract. Stir until incorporated.

4. Cover and chill for 2 hours, or if needing quicker, put in the freezer for 30 minutes.

5. Pull out mix and give it a final stir.

6. Pour into ice cream bowl and make according to your machine’s settings.

7. While that’s churning, count out 12 Oreos and put 10 into a plastic bag and smash into crumbs with a rolling pin. This should yield about 1 cup. Snack on the saved two while waiting for ice cream to finish; when you finish the package of Oreos without sharing, hide the evidence.

8. With 5 minutes left on the churn, add in crushed Oreos.

9. Once completed, put in a freezing container, and let harden for 3-4 hours or overnight.

10. Scoop yourself out some and enjoy some trash tv, honey!