Why Is a Big Bowl of Ice Cream So Comforting?

Tonight's dessert

After a long and stressful day, most adults utter the following words: "I need a drink".  Heck, even I utter those words sometimes, and then I remember I don't drink any more.  So instead, I think "I need a ridiculous amount of ice cream covered in crumbled thin mints or Oreos or pretty much any cookie I can find in the house, then smothered in hot fudge sauce right out of the microwave and topped off with a mile-high spray of whipped cream.  Oh, and give me a tall glass of milk along side.  And until recently, it was whole milk, but I finally came to my senses just a little bit.  So "Why Is a Big Bowl of Ice Cream So Comforting?"

I know it's not the near thousand calories I'm ingesting.  And I don't think it's the brain freeze I get if I eat it too fast.  So what is it?  I think each sinful spoonful offers a little break from the daily grind.  With that first bite, you're transported to your younger days, hanging out in front of the ice cream shop licking clockwise around the cone so the melting ice cream doesn't hit the ground.  When life was simple and all you had to worry about was which video game to play next.  With that next taste comes the magical hit of the cold ice cream swirled in with the hot fudge, sending your taste buds into a state of confused euphoria.  Is this a cold dessert or is it a warm desert.  It's both!  In fact, the combination of cold ice cream with warm pie or brownies might just be the best and most comforting food combination ever imagined.

As you dig your spoon into the ice cream for your third mouthful, making sure you get a little of everything, you begin to realize this might not be the healthiest thing for you.  But you know that for just a few brief moments, nothing else matters.  Not the next day's work you should be doing now.  Not the dirty dishes piling up in the sink.  Not the dog whimpering at the water bowl.  That for this small slice of your day, you can just kick back and be as over-indulgent as you like without being judged.  That's a truly comforting feeling.

Dreaming of tomorrow

Spoon by spoon, you slip more and more into an ice cream stupor much as if you had actually indulged in that drink.  But unfortunately, when your spoon clanks against the bottom of the now-empty bowl, you are immediately blasted back into reality, only now with a massive tummy ache.  You wonder aloud why you felt the urge to ingest all of that, but quietly think to yourself, I can't wait for tomorrow night when I can sneak away again with another supersized helping of the good stuff.

What is your "Bowl of Ice Cream"?  Or more importantly to my addiction, what do you put in your bowl of ice cream that I might like to try tomorrow night?  Let me hear from you by commenting below!