The best thing about living in Chicago is that there is always an opportunity to do my two favorite things in life: complain about the weather; and talk about food.

Other people here love this as much as I do. They love it so much that they host indoor farmer's markets all over the city in winter so they can gather to talk about horrible, horrible weather and delicious, delicious food AT THE SAME TIME.

It was at one of these markets that I met Kris Swanberg who makes nicecream, awesome local handcrafted ice cream made in small batches with organic ingredients.

Backstory: I like to stalk the people who sell baked goods and desserts at farmer's markets and submit them to the following: "YOU MAKE SWEETS! I LIKE SWEETS! I QUIT MY JOB TO GO TO PASTRY SCHOOL AND NOW I MAKE SWEETS TOO! HOW DID YOU GET STARTED MAKING SWEETS? DID I MENTION I GO TO SCHOOL AND MAKE SWEETS?"

Usually they're very nice and polite and talkative and put up with me; sometimes it's a little more like, hey lady, you're eating all my samples.

Kris was the former, so while I ate up all her free ice cream we chatted about how she got started. She offered to show me a little about making ice cream, I offered my free labor, and a few weeks later I was separating eggs in the kitchen space she rents from a nearby bakery, where we cooked custard and talked about office jobs and school and earl grey ice cream.

So long story short, I have yet another dessert addiction which brings my total daily consumption of sugar up to, oh, 100% or so.

If you live in Chicago you can buy nicecream at the Green Grocer, Provenance Food & Wine, the Dill Pickle, and lots of farmer's markets around. My favorite is the cinnamon and spice, it's got just a little cayenne or something in there and it's soooo delicious. Plus I helped make it :)