51ºÚÁÏ

The problem was that I did not know I was stuck behind a truck that had spilled 40,000 pounds of cheese onto the road. All I knew was that I was in Cincinnati trying to pick up my hungry mother for lunch and it took me 45 minutes to go 2 miles on the expressway, and she was getting hungrier with each passing minute.

I called her to explain that I was stuck in traffic and she started talking about the possibility of dying of starvation, but I am 95% certain she was joking.

Had I known that I was stuck in traffic because a truck had spilled 40,000 pounds of cheese onto the highway, I would have approached the situation with a better attitude. I still would have been frustrated, but at least I would have exhibited a certain joie de brie.

It wasn’t until later that I learned about the truck and the 40,000 pounds of cheese. Immediately, I started to picture exactly what that looked like.

In my mind, it wasn’t a truck with one 40,000 pound wheel of cheese. In my mind, the truck had tipped over and spilled 80,000 half-pound wedges of cheese — probably in an assortment of varieties.

At this point, I should probably mention that I later found out that the truck driver was not injured, and neither was the driver of the car that collided with him. I also found out that the collision had happened at midnight, but two of the three lanes of traffic were still blocked when I was there at 1 p.m.

Unfortunately, I also found out that the truck had not spilled the cheese onto the road at all. It was all still in the trailer, but it had to be removed before the truck could be righted again. All 40,000 pounds of cheese had to be discarded.

From my own standpoint, I think I was most disappointed by the fact that there was no actual cheese on the actual road. That would have made a much better story.

But that’s not what I wanted to talk about in this column. I wanted to talk about the French pot process for making ice cream.

More to the point, I wanted to talk about the French pot process for making ice cream with chocolate chips.

In virtually every ice cream that is made throughout the world, chocolate chips are basically worthless. They are little more than chocolate-colored pebbles. They may have a faint chocolate flavor if you hold them in your mouth long enough that they start to melt a little, but otherwise they impart the sense of chocolate more than the actual flavor or texture of chocolate.

That’s where the French pot process comes in.

A couple of days after my cheese-related highway adventure, I mysteriously found myself at the one place that does chocolate chip ice cream right. Graeter’s, in Cincinnati, makes chocolate chips that actually taste and feel like chocolate — soft and chewy and incredibly rich and delicious.

The secret is the French pot process. The French pot process is basically the way you would make ice cream at home, but the pot part spins around faster than a hand-cranked model.

Because the machine is open at the top, the ice-cream artisans (as they are called) can pour melted dark chocolate along the inside edge of the spinning pot. The chocolate solidifies as it hits the cold side, and the worker then uses a paddle or large spatula to scrape it off. As he scrapes, the chocolate breaks off into small and not-so-small chunks.

I still have no idea how or why the chocolate stays so blissfully soft and chewy even when kept in a cold freezer, but somehow it does.

But that’s not what I wanted to talk about in this column. I wanted to talk about serendipity.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a column suggesting the reason I am emotionally strong and fearless is that I ate the food of the Cincinnati Public Schools, specifically Bond Hill Elementary School and Walnut Hills High School.

Later, I heard from reader Ilissa Staadeker who said the column had special resonance for her because she, too, went to Bond Hill Elementary School and Walnut Hills High School, though she was certain she went long before I was there.

As it turns out, we were actually at each school at the same time, though she is 5 years older than I am (they are both 6-year schools). I asked her where she lived in Bond Hill, and mentioned that I had lived on Lois Drive.

You lived on on Lois Drive? she asked. Were your parents Albert and Beth?

They were indeed. It turns out that not only did the 51ºÚÁÏ-based Staadeker and I live in the same Cincinnati neighborhood and go to the same schools, but our parents were actually friends.

And now, as it turns out, we live less than a mile away from each other.

It was a surprising and unexpected and almost bizarre coincidence. That’s what I wanted to talk about.