Several years ago I asked my husband for, and was dutifully given, a Krups La Glaciere Ice Cream Maker as a birthday gift. It was early summer, and I must have been seduced by some alluring dessert recipe as well as the conviction, which I think we all experience from time to time, that a new kitchen appliance could possibly transform my life. At the very least, I hoped it would add a layer of professional gloss to my culinary skill set. The new ice cream maker — an easy-to-operate and well-made item — was used exactly once that summer, and then stored away in a high cupboard alongside the pressure-cooker, popcorn-maker, meat-grinder, and electric knife-sharpener.

In retrospect, I think two things slowed my appreciation of this handy machine. The first being the many new, locally made specialty ice creams that debuted on the crowded culinary stage in the Berkshires where we spend our summers. There was Berkshire Ice Cream’s rich and resonant Ginger made from local Golden Guernsey cream. SoCo Creamery’s decadent Snickdoodle Caramel Crunch. And, more recently, a delicious new line from Guido’s Marketplace, including a Vanilla that is as pure and inviting as the newly driven snow. Even left in a freezer for weeks on end, these ice creams are so flavorful and satisfying that making my own seemed the cooking equivalent of lugging those proverbial coals to Newcastle.

The other set-back was the eye-opening — if not popping — realization of what actually goes into your typical ice cream recipe. Egg yolks. Heavy cream. Lots of refined sugar. That’s before any fancy chocolate or macadamia nuts you might have had in mind. In other words, I came to see that preparing ice cream is a little bit like digging your own grave with cholesterol. And the actual work involved is fairly low-impact: stirring a saucepan of sweet, rich custard is not about to burn off any of those calories. So, as I mentioned, the La Glaciere found its way pretty quickly to appliance purgatory.

Then, last summer, I came upon a recipe for Chocolate Sorbet. Do you know what it’s made out of basically? Chocolate, sugar, and water. My mother, who eventually turned herself into an accomplished cook, used to tell us that when she was first married, she didn’t even know how to boil water. Well, honestly, that’s about all you need to know how to do in order to make this rich, dense, totally delicious frozen dessert: (Click here.)

So, the La Glaciere found its way back to the countertop — and stayed there all summer and right through the fall. Pear sorbet. Raspberry. Lemon. Cherry. Earl Grey. There’s a wonderful variety of sorbet recipes to explore — all easy, inexpensive, and essentially sinless.

One of my favorites is the cranberry-vanilla bean sorbet (click here) that I made this year for our Thanksgiving extravaganza when a number of our family’s fairly zealous amateur chefs vie happily together in one big kitchen. We served this as a “palate cleanser” between a main dinner of seven side dishes and an incidental turkey breast — and a heart-stopping (almost literally) selection of pies and tarts.

Liza Bennett Gyllenhaal is a novelist who divides her time between New York City and The Berkshires. Read about her novel Local Knowledge at www.lizagyllenhaal.com.