Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

My favorite dessert memory didn't occur until I was 22 years old and opening a hotel. Because of my job in the banquet department, I was working 100 hours a week to open a brand new hotel outside of Washington DC. My staff didn't speak English, I was living in rooms that were not completed, undergoing physical therapy on a work-related back injury three times a week, and my fiance was deployed to the Persian Gulf. Needless to say, life could have been better.

One of these awful winter nights were it was thirty degrees outside and eighty inside we had over 1,000 high school kids in for an Inaugural Ball. They ate and drank us out of house and home and worked us until two am! Exhaused, hot, sweaty and sore and made my way into the kitchen for some quiet and a glass of water. The restaurant manager, chef and I all ended up with the remainder of a five gallon bucket of chocolate ice cream and spoons. It wasn't even the best ice cream I've ever had, but it was at that moment. Cold, rich and satisfying it soothed the long event behind us and fortified me for the rest of the night ahead...getting ready for breakfast.

To this day, when it gets really rough, I reach for some chocolate ice cream and a cold, stainless steel table to ease the stress of the day and give me the strength to keep going.