There’s another bonus: Softened ice cream tastes so much better than rock-hard ice cream.

When it’s frozen solid, your tongue tastes more ice crystals and less of the flavor. That’s why fresh-churned ice cream, which is still a bit soft, always tastes so much better before it’s allowed to harden in the freezer.

Try it—you’ll like it.

Find our favorite ice cream brands, recipes and our Ice Cream Glossary.

Soften, then scoop. Photo by Agg | Dreamstime.

Our favorite: Cranberry Pecan cookies. Photo
by Erika Meller | THE NIBBLE.

The bakery makes sure everyone can be included, turning out gluten-free and sugar-free products as well. Kosher certification is by National Kosher Supervisors.

We recently tried a mixed box of cookies: Chocolate Chip M&M Cookies, Chocolate Chunk Cookies, Cranberry Pecan Cookies, Double Chocolate Walnut Cookies, Heath Bar Crunch Cookies, Oatmeal Raisin Cookies and Peanut Butter Cookies. Our favorite—to our surprise—was the Cranberry Pecan. It’s not a flavor we’d typically order; but the sweet-tart flavor of the chewy cranberries combined with the crunchy pecans to create a standout.

The box, in a festive blue design, announces that there’s a party inside. The box is made of very sturdy cardboard and is reusable to transport your own bake goods—it’s the perfect size for a pie.

• Find more of our favorite cookies and cakes.
• See our favorite gluten-free products.
• See our favorite sugar-free products.

If you want just a bit of onion flavor, you can mince the onion and sprinkle just a bit on your bagel. Or you can substitute chives, the smallest and most delicate-flavored member of the onion family. Native to Asia, it was purportedly brought to the West by Marco Polo, and has been cultivated in Europe since the Middle Ages.

Chives are one of the “fines herbes” of French cuisine, which also include chervil, parsley and tarragon. Most chives have lovely lavender flowers (others are white), which are also edible.

Chives lose their flavor when cooked for an extensive period of time, so they are primarily used in quick-cooked foods (scrambled eggs, for example) or as a garnish.

In addition to eggs, chives are a popular garnish for fish, potatoes, soups and finely chopped as a plate garnish. We chop them very finely and scatter them on dinner plates as a garnish, or place a whole chive across a piece of fish or meat (if they’re in flower, so much the better!).

Instead of onion, pass a bowl of chopped
chives. Photo by Claire Freierman | THE NIBBLE.

• Check out our favorite organic bagels, from French Meadow Bakery.