The ah-ha moment for Ruby Scoops Ice Cream & Sweets founder Rabia Kamara began with tears. “There was a family that had these two little girls, and the parents had given each girl one ice cream scoop. One of the little girls got distracted, as children do, and her sister ate both of the scoops of ice cream. She [the little girl] straight up lost it, had a full-on tantrum,” recalls Kamara about an event that happened earlier in her career when she was creating desserts, specifically her uniquely flavored ice creams, for a restaurant.
“Even though that little girl was very upset because her sister ate her ice cream…They are going to talk about this at some point in their adult lives. And it went off in my brain; ‘This is what I want to do for the rest of my life. I want to make ice cream.’”
Building bonds and making memories with the foods we enjoy is at the heart of what motivates the Silver Spring, Maryland, native to create the special ice cream flavors and desserts offered at her Richmond, Virginia, shop.
“Typically having ice cream is a very happy moment; there’s so much nostalgia around desserts and joy around it,” observes the formally trained chef who won the first season of the Food Network’s “Ben & Jerry’s Clash of the Cones” ice cream making competition.
Here, Cuisine Noir sat down with the “Ice Cream Lady,” as Kamara is popularly known in Richmond, to get a taste of the inspiration behind the ever-changing deliciousness she serves at her colorful, selfie-worthy shop.
What’s the story behind the “Ruby Scoops” name for your ice cream shop?
When I was a child, people could never say my name right. And I got tired of correcting people. So I said, “Call me Ruby.” My sister found out about that and started blackmailing me, “I’m going to tell mama and daddy people are calling you something else.”
And I finally said, “Whatever, just tell them.” So, she jokingly calls me Ruby and has done so most of my life. And that’s where the name came from.
How did your love for ice cream come to be?
I’ve always enjoyed desserts and started baking at a really young age. When I was eight or nine, my mother had given me a Mrs. Fields cookbook, and that’s when I understood that people could turn their hobbies into businesses.
I told my parents [that’s what I wanted to do], but their idea of the American dream was different. Cooking was a hobby and not necessarily what you do for work. So I did what was expected of me; graduated from high school, went to college. I came to Richmond to attend Virginia Commonwealth University. And my time away from home really allowed me to explore what I was passionate about—which was still food.
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By Jocelyn Amador
Cuisine Noir Magazine is the country’s first Black food publication, launched in 2009 and dedicated to connecting the African diaspora through food, drink and travel. To read the rest of this article and more, visit www.cuisinenoirmag.com.
