Calling
For the last three years, Nick and I have been attending our annual ice cream conference, which travels from city to city across the United States. This year, my creative but introverted husband presented on building a creative menu. He presented alongside Kristina Zontini, one of our ice cream friends who owns Super Secret Ice Cream in northern New Hampshire–one of two shops that has been recognized as a James Beard Foundation semi-finalist.
Nick and I right before showtime!
Yesterday, Nick shared how he develops our flavors to a packed room. This was his first conference presentation and it went so well! He and Kristina inspired the room and left them lining up with follow up questions on how they could build similarly creative menus.
What’s amazing about Nick’s journey as an ice cream maker is that when we started our business, he was not the primary ice cream maker. He was charged with managing our scoopers and supervising our production team while occasionally developing ice cream flavors. We left the majority of the flavor ideation to a pastry chef we hired.
Nick during his presentation
By January 2018–our first winter–we were running out of money. We’d only had a month and a half of summer sales, which was far from enough to keep us running until the next ice cream season. Things were bleak. When I asked Nick how his flavors were performing against the pastry chef's, he said customers were more excited about his. That was all the data we needed. We let the pastry chef go, and Nick became our sole recipe developer.
Over the last seven and a half years, he has been developing flavors that tell a story of people and culture–the people that make our neighborhood tick and shine, the cultures that raised us, and the many cultures present in our neighborhood. I’m sure neither he nor his family would have ever thought he’d grow up to be a recognized ice cream maker, which leads me to a very unscientific theory that I’ve been building upon for the last two decades.
Nick and Kristina during their presentation
My theory starts with some questions: What did you love doing between third and fourth grade? What lit you up, what couldn't you stop doing? My theory is that a person's life's work connects to these early interests.
I have asked Nick this question several times over our 16-year relationship. I’ve never gotten a solid answer. Last night, I posed these questions to an ice cream colleague. He shared that he never really knew what he wanted to do when he was younger beyond playing video games and playing outside with his friends. I thought about how Nick might have a similar answer.
I think there's real insight in what lights you up during those upper elementary years. But, if you’re a kid that never really knew what they wanted to do or can’t really remember what they loved at that age, sometimes stumbling into a line of work that lets you express yourself may be the answer to operating in your highest power, which I would define as a critical part of one’s life work.
With you,
Petrushka
Your Local Ice Cream Lady & Life Coach