Other than some sort of strawberry cheesecake concoction, my local supermarket offers just plain old ice cream sandwiches. Sure, they're classics. Put another way, though, they're pretty boring.

If the ice cream sandwich was a regular one, it'd be turkey on white, with no mustard, mayo or toppings. How about some cheese? Maybe a tomato slice?

To counter the boredom, I thought I'd try a bit of reinventing. Don't worry, no condiments were involved. Just the Spoonstress, our friend Peter and some zippy combinations.

Before experimenting, there were two problems to consider. First, the chocolate wafers leave both much to be desired and a mark. They don't add much flavor and the sticky finger factor can be a real bummer. Second, biting into an ice cream sandwich usually squeezes out the vanilla. Like with S'mores, this side squish-out gets annoying.

The sandwich making began with the bisection of an Oreo. On top of the meager layer of creme went a scoop of Mint Chocolate Chip. Don't do this if you ever want to eat a plain Oreo again.

Like the venerable Ben & Jerry's flavor, this Mint Chocolate Cookie doesn't disappoint. More interesting, though, was orange sherbet snuggled by Oreos. This orange and chocolate combination works well like, ahem, an Orange Milano cookie. Coffee ice cream and Oreos would be a sure thing, too.

The sandwich's structural integrity is also a sure thing. Sure to fall apart. The side squish-out is a major problem with Oreos. Quite simply, the cookies are too hard.

By the second Oreo sandwich squish-out, the Spoonstress had relented on her opposition to open faced sandwiches. I had proposed the idea -- hey, it's still a sandwich! -- but she wasn't sold on the idea.

After one open-faced ice cream sandwich, she was writing the Hors D'sserts Manifesto. "Instead of a cracker with some spinachy cheese stuff, wouldn't you rather have an Oreo with sherbet on top?" she proposed. Caterers of the world, the Spoonstress has spoken.

Still, the risk of brain freeze with open-faced sandwiches was daunting and I felt we could do better, structurally. The search for a softer cookie surface led me to the new Oreo Cakesters. And as the artist sometimes known as the Forkster, Cakesters were a natural. With "the classic taste of Oreo in a soft snack cake," Cakesters are definitely better at holding the sandwich together. Essentially, the chocolate parts are puffier versions of regular ice cream sandwich wafers. Yet accordingly, they've got 'sticky fingers' written all over them. You've traded one problem for another.

It was only later that the Spoonstress' visiting friend and my new hero, Jeanne Faucheux, made the suggestion of the month: Why not assemble and then freeze the sandwiches beforehand? A few hours does the trick and renders the Cakester moot. I'm no scientist, but I'd guess this has something to do with cookie and ice cream being frozen together.

Just as icy Oreos work magic, hot cookies also keep ice cream sandwiches intact. Why? Who cares? You just got another excuse to eat fresh-out-of-the-oven cookies.

After mastering sandwich engineering, it was time to tackle ice cream with chunks. Nestle makes a sandwich with vanilla ice cream inside a chocolate chip cookie that's easily the best thing in your quickie mart's freezer. Instead of vanilla, I added cookie dough ice cream to my homemade Toll House cookies.

On the plus side, uniting cookie with cookie dough is a parent-child reunion in each bite. And it's not as perplexing as the chicken and egg thing. Unfortunately, the bites with cookie dough aren't as tasty as those without. The reason: the dough is an inferior, incomplete version of the cookie. It's like tossing some uncooked mushrooms on a mushroom pizza.

There are no cooked vs. raw discrepancies in Peanut Butter Cup ice cream between two Reese's peanut butter cups, but there is something wrong with it. This classic case of gilding the lily was far too sweet. It put me off ice cream for a good ten minutes.

I was almost embarrassed by my Reese's and Reese's idea, but at least I wasn't alone. "I've had childhood dreams that looked like this," said ever-game Peter Robichaux, my fellow food adventurer. "Some fantasies weren't made to come true."

Worst of all, the (Peanut Butter) Cup on Cup still brought sticky fingers. After yet another hand washing, I nixed the idea of Ben & Jerry's Cinnamon Buns ice cream between a halved Cinnabon. And, thankfully, I aborted my vague donut notions.

I'd learned my ice cream sandwich lessons: use non-sticky "bread" and either freeze the sandwiches ahead or plan to bake fresh cookies. With those basics in mind, I challenge you to elevate the ice cream sandwich to a new level. It's time we made some new classics.