I'm treading on thin ice. I'm in danger of becoming the obnoxious friend who always starts a story with tales of their travels, and this recipe is no different:
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<br />When I lived in Japan, I fell in love with black sesame-flavored everything, but my favorite of all was black sesame seed ice cream. We lived a few subway stops over from the city's zoo and botanical gardens, which I visited frequently (thanks to a very reasonably priced annual pass). On nice days I'd often treat myself to a black sesame ice cream cone, but even ordering in Japanese I wasn't always convincing enough. Sometimes the worker would come out of the stand, around to me, and physically point to the picture to make sure I really knew what I was getting myself into. Yes, yes I did. One black sesame ice cream cone, onegaishimasu.
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<br />My version is based on a lightly adapted version of Jeni's Ice Cream Base, with a little less sugar, a little more salt, and the addition of black sesame seeds (of course) and vanilla bean seeds. Yes, I'm sure you could substitute a small amount of vanilla extract for the vanilla bean seeds. But it makes my soul sing a little bit to know that some of the flecks are vanilla bean seeds mixing in with the sesame seeds—delight in the little things and all that.

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