The American South has always enchanted me for reasons I can’t fully explain. Maybe it’s something in the air—or the ghosts in it. My draw to the region was only strengthened by the shows and films that romanticized it: sprawling oaks heavy with Spanish moss, summers so thick with heat and humidity that time itself seemed to slow, music drifting from every open door, and a mystical energy that didn’t just float through the streets—it haunted them.
When I moved to New Orleans, it wasn’t just to soak in the atmosphere. I came to write The Esoteric Alchemy series, a witchy LGBTQ+ fantasy trilogy. But if I’m honest, American Horror Story: Coven and True Blood had already cast their spells on me. And to be fair, when I was younger, I said that I wanted my life to be “moving from place to place and writing about wherever it was that I was living.”
At the time, June 2017, I was also deep in the process of opening my ice cream shop—an extension of my years in pastry and the part of the craft where I felt most fluent. Around then, I became friends with a guy named Matt, who worked in props for film productions around town. (He went on to be the Assistant Property Master on The White Lotus: Thailand, but back then, he was on Ava DuVernay’s Queen Sugar.) One day, while wandering down a potholed street in the Bywater, I stumbled upon the Queen Sugar crew filming in an empty lot. I walked by twice—not because I liked sweating through my shirt in the swampy heat, but because I caught sight of Rutina Wesley.
Rutina has been one of my favorite actresses since True Blood (a show I’ve rewatched start to finish at least five times—I still don’t like Season 5). Seeing her in person felt surreal.
Somehow—and I truly don’t remember who suggested it first, me or Matt—we landed on the idea of making a Queen Sugar-inspired ice cream for Rutina. And just like that, I was off. I don’t even know if I fully believed him when he said he could get it to her, but at that point, I didn’t care.
I wanted a flavor that captured the heart of the show and the soul of the South. Not just something sweet, but something story-driven. I settled on a base of sweet tea ice cream with roasted peach and sugar cane compote, finished with a local honey drizzle. I drove to Hong Kong Market, grabbed fresh sugar cane, and got to work roasting peaches with slices of cane until they turned syrupy and caramelized. I steeped a bold black tea in the cream for the base, and sourced raw honey from a nearby apiary. I made the recipe twice, because the first batch wasn’t good enough. This was going to Rutina Wesley—my ice cream had to be perfect.
Once I got the green light from Matt, I packed the container in ice, cranked the AC in my car, and drove it across town to set. I handed it off at Matt’s trailer and waited.
For hours, I heard nothing. I started to assume it had disappeared into the chaos of production. But then, early that evening, I got a video message. There she was. Rutina. Eating my ice cream. Not just her, but a handful of other cast and crew, passing it around, smiling, reacting. It was pure magic.
I sat there stunned, nearly in tears. It wasn’t just about the moment. It was about what it meant. It was the first time I really thought: Maybe I do know what I’m doing. Maybe my way—my rules-be-damned, magic-first, instinct-led style of creating—could actually connect with people. Watching them fall under the spell of that scoop reminded me of why I do what I do: to tell stories through flavor, to move people with what I make.
A little while later, Matt called me again. The show was filming a scene where two characters would be eating ice cream on camera, and one of the actresses had dietary restrictions. I whipped up a vegan rocky road just for her. When they tasted it, Matt told me they took one bite, looked at him, and said, “Y’all are the business.” When the episode aired, I screamed at my TV as I watched them dip into a pint I knew was mine.
Now, Rutina is starring in HBO’s The Last of Us—a show I consider one of the most powerful stories ever told, especially in the realm of video games (The Last of Us: Part II deserves its own post one day). And every time I see her being a total queen on screen, I remember the day I was able to give her a gift I crafted from the heart.
That’s the thing about dreams: they don’t always show up how or when you expect them to. Sometimes, they come tucked in Tupperware, packed on ice, and passed through a trailer door on a humid Louisiana afternoon.
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