Cherry Rabia. Grateful Alive.

There's only so much I can crib about the lack of this and that. While I can't make my own Chex Mix yet, I realised that the World Wide Web is bursting with recipes for homemade marshmallows, goldfish crackers and pretzels. So making, say, Momofuku's Crack Pie might be a little difficult, comparatively, but even with local and homemade ingredients, I see a lot of spoons steadily digging away until the pie dish has just crumbs.

I'm not making the Crack Pie. This time.

Instead, I tried my hand at one of Ben & Jerry's classic ice-cream flavours. Cherry Garcia.

Three simple reasons went into making this one simple ice-cream. Reason one. I had a box full of luscious, juicy cherries from Kashmir. (I barely managed to save it from my family's cherry-chomping jaws.)

Two. Chocolate that the neighbours brought for us from Ooty.

And lucky three. Summer is here, and it is here with a vengeance. The good people of Madras are paying heavily for the uncharacteristically cool monsoon last year. Ice-cream with fruit in it, sounded better than heavy puddings or rich fudge-filled desserts. Yes. It did.

I played around with the original Ben & Jerry's recipe. Since I don't have an ice-cream maker (top on my wishlist!), and the idea of stewing in the kitchen, making custard with eggs and cream and freezing-melting-refreezing it was not very appealing, I-hold your breath-picked up a tub of ice-cream at the store.

And since 1/4 cup of chocolate didn't sound enough at all, I used Vanilla with chocolate chips (and a teeny bit of praline) instead of plain vanilla. The proportions were out of whack, but in such a great way.

Best decision ever. Make this and die happy. No, seriously. It takes very little prep time and transforms Plain Jane Vanilla into an extremely sexy, cherry-and-chocolate wonder. Make this and live happy. Even if you're in a country that has access to freezers stocked with Ben & Jerry's.

Quick-fix Cherry Garcia:

Ingredients:

250 g Vanilla ice-cream with Chocolate Chips
1/3 cup fresh cherries, pitted and halved.
1/3 cup grated dark chocolate (or use chunks).

Method:

1)Set out the ice-cream to soften until it's of a creamy, soupy consistency.

2)Mix in the pitted cherries, juice and all.

3)Add spoonfuls of the grated (or preferably in the form of chunks) chocolate, mixing well after each spoonful so it gets dispersed equally.

4)Put in a freezer safe box and freeze for a good couple of hours.

5)Serve in style.

Eat in not-all-that-much style (the tub is mine). That easy, that yummy.