Lokelani Alabanza Just (Re)wrote Ice Cream History
Photo by Keren Trevino
In the 1840s, a free Black woman named Sarah Estell ran a wildly successful ice cream saloon in Nashville. Before the Civil War, in the South, this woman built something extraordinary. People called her 'the Ice Cream Queen.'
Nearly two centuries later, Lokelani Alabanza — known to her friends as Loke — is picking up that crown. And the receipts she's bringing are substantial.
On June 16, 2026, the week of Juneteenth, her debut cookbook, Ice Cream Queen: Flavors from Black America's Past, Present, Future, hits shelves. Inside are 100 recipes, yes. But also: 200 years of excavated history. Rare photographs dating back to the early 20th century. Names that were almost lost. Stories that nearly disappeared.
This is what happens when a classically trained pastry chef with 20+ years of experience becomes obsessed with a question nobody else is asking.
How a Pastry Chef Became an Ice Cream Historian
Loke's culinary path reads like a passport full of stamps. After training at the New England Culinary Institute in Vermont, her first professional kitchen job took her to Denmark. Then four years as a private chef in Japan, absorbing flavors and techniques that would eventually reshape how she thought about dessert.
Los Angeles is where pastry became non-negotiable. Under the mentorship of celebrated pastry chef Elizabeth Belkind at Grace Restaurant, Loke found her calling. Later, working alongside legends like Nancy Silverton at the James Beard Award-winning Campanile, the foundation solidified. Pastry wasn't just a job. It was precision, transformation, memory.
Her work has been featured in Bon Appétit, NPR, Food52, Milk Street Radio, the Oxford American, Cherry Bombe Magazine, and she appeared on CBS Mornings. Through Saturated, her non-dairy, plant-based ice cream brand based in Nashville, Loke creates flavors that spark imagination while educating people about African American culinary history.
As Culinary Director for a local creamery, Loke developed over 300 ice cream flavors across several years. Some nostalgic. Some experimental. All intentional. The work was good. But something was missing.
One day, while perfecting a mint-chip recipe, Loke came across advice Anthony Bourdain had once given: cook for yourself. Be selfish about the work. Challenge yourself to make it better, not just to please someone else.
The shift was immediate. Instead of asking what the owner wanted, Loke started asking: What story am I trying to tell?
That question changed everything.
Researching Black American Ice Cream History: Where It Started
The invitation came from Mary Lou, a friend from the Nashville Les Dames chapter who was teaching a culinary class at Nashville State. Would Loke come talk about ice cream?
On the chalkboard that day, Loke wrote: 'History of American Ice Cream.'
That phrase cracked something open. The research began almost immediately. Sarah Estell's name surfaced first — the Ice Cream Queen of 1840s Nashville. Then other names appeared, scattered across cities and decades, hidden in newspaper clippings and forgotten records. But when Loke went looking for more, the trail went cold. The same three people kept appearing. Everyone else? Erased.
The question became unavoidable: How has Black America not touched ice cream? Of course they did. They've been here the whole time.
What started as curiosity became obsession. First, Loke began collecting cookbooks — first editions by Black authors, texts that had been dismissed or forgotten. Then came the photographs. Waking up at 5 a.m. with an inexplicable urge to search eBay became routine. And every time, something would surface. Images of Black Americans eating ice cream, some dating back to 1910. Families at picnics. Kids with cones. Moments of pure joy that had been sitting in someone's attic for decades.
This wasn't going to be just a cookbook. This was going to be an archive. Proof that these people existed, that they mattered, that their contributions to American food culture were real and undeniable.
Those photographs? They made it into the book.
Writing a Cookbook While Working Full-Time: The Reality
Five years. That's how long this book took from proposal to publication. Not five years of romantic writing sessions in sunlit kitchens. Five years of waiting, revising, learning that the publishing industry operates on its own timeline, and discovering that once a manuscript leaves your hands, control becomes an illusion.
There were stretches — six months at a time — when Loke wouldn't hear from her editor. Radio silence. The advance, which sounds generous on paper, got divided fast: recipe testing, food styling, photography, all the people required to make a cookbook look professional. Meanwhile, rent was still due. Lights needed to stay on. Loke was also building Saturated, her plant-based ice cream brand, at the same time she was writing this book. Two massive projects running parallel because that's how life actually works.
A writer friend gave her the best advice: if you can get just one sentence down in a day, you've done good. Some days, that's exactly what happened. One sentence. And it had to be enough.
But Nashville had given Loke something Los Angeles also did a long time ago: a village. Over a decade of showing up, being present, staying open to connection, a community had formed. When the tank ran empty, they carried her. A friend said it plainly: 'That's why you have a village — when you don't have anything left, they carry you.'
The other thing that kept her going? Delusion. The productive kind. The kind Tina Turner meant when she said she had to bet on her own horse. The kind that requires believing the thing needs to exist before anyone else can see it. Loke just kept showing up, even when the finish line was invisible.
Ice Cream Queen Recipes: What's Inside the Cookbook
The book contains 100 recipes built on simple, approachable bases. Nashville Hot Chicken ice cream honors the city that gave Loke a an ice cream home. Juneteenth Sorbet — bright with summer raspberries and hibiscus flowers — celebrates freedom and resilience. PB&J swirls vanilla with peanut butter, strawberry jam, and actual slices of white bread. Chocolate-Covered Kettle Chip plays with sweet, salty, and crunchy.
But every recipe sits inside a larger story about the ice cream makers who came before — the ones whose names got erased, the ones Loke spent years hunting down so we could finally know them.
Picking Up the Crown
Two hundred years ago, Sarah Estell made ice cream in Nashville, and people lined up to buy it. A free Black woman in the 1840s South, building something that mattered, creating something people wanted. And then history tried to forget her.
But here's the thing about erasure: it only works if everyone agrees to look away.
Loke didn't look away. Instead, she woke up at 5 a.m. to search for proof. She wrote one sentence on the hard days. She leaned on her village when she couldn't stand on her own. She bet on herself the way you have to when the outcome isn't guaranteed. And she finished.
Ice Cream Queen isn't just a cookbook. It's what happens when someone decides the story matters enough to dig it up, dust it off, and make sure it doesn't disappear again. It's 100 recipes and 200 years of history and a whole archive of joy that nearly got lost.
Sarah Estell was the Ice Cream Queen in 1840. On June 16, 2026, Loke picks up that crown.
