Jake Godby - Humphry Slocombe Ice Cream Book

Many countries of the world have long regarded us as a queer people. A people who prefer our tea iced, our apples in pies and our dairy products frozen into Ice Cream.

George Hennerich, Lets Sell Ice Cream

Hey, bitches, thanks for buying our ice cream book. We worked really hard on this thing (over many drinks) and hope you have as much fun making ice cream from these recipes as we have since opening our shop in San Francisco. We cant promise you your money back, and in fact have probably already spent it on pills and liquor, but if you dont like the ice cream, we will eat a bug.

Which one of you is Humphry and which one is Slocombe? This is something that nine out of ten people ask when they meet us. Jake Godby is not Humphry Slocombe. And neither is Sean Vahey.

Now that that is out of the way, to fully tell the story of Humphry Slocombe, we need to rewind about a decade. Hop in the time machine with us.

The concept of Humphry Slocombe started in the dark, cobwebbed quarters of Jakes mind when he was the pastry chef at Coi, Daniel Pattersons four-star restaurant in San Francisco.

Nestled in the middle of strip-club row, Coi challenges the guest to experience new things, new flavorslike Humphry Slocombe later would. There, diners were asked to leave preconceived notions at the door, and do things like put aromatic oils on their wrists to heighten the sensory experience of the meal. Jake had been bouncing around at various San Francisco restaurants, but it was in the kitchen at Coi that he went from smoking pot to smoking yogurt, making his name as a dessert innovator. And every once in a while, after hours, the staff would go next door to the strip club, where they would offer Jakes cookies in lieu of a cover charge.

All this time, with the daily inspiration of cutting-edge cuisine and flashing neon girly lights, the idea of Humphry Slocombe was brewing in Jakes head. It took a splash of smoked yogurt in the eye to make him realize that the time was now! He had just inherited a little bit of money from his father. Knowing himself pretty well, he had to put it to good use. If not, he would have found faster ways to spend it, and sadly, accountants frown upon the notion of shoesand lap dancesas an investment.

At that point, he had been working as a cook for fifteen years. It was time to do his own thing. As much as he loved his restaurant cohortsmisfits, artists, oddballs, and lunatics all of them (if youve ever read an Anthony Bourdain book, the casts of characters and shared crazy culture is all true)he didnt think he could sustain keeping up with the hours and the lifestyle.

The original idea was an ice cream truck. Since he didnt have the kind of money for a storefront operation, Jakes first instinct was for a little rock n roll ice cream truck that would make appearances at farmers markets and parks. He envisioned a graffiti-covered, run-down ice cream truck with punk music bellowing out of it. Hell, it would basically be CBGBs on wheels, sans needles.

The goal was to find a commercial kitchen where he could make the ice cream during the week, and then take the truck out on the weekends. On the side, he also wanted to work with chefs to create custom flavors for their restaurants. A bespoke program, if you will.

Ice cream noir was the overall concept. Its so easy to think ice cream and immediately think cute. If theres one thing we both hate, its cute.

Turns out theres not just one thing Jake hates. He also hates authority. But the State of California and the dairy board in particular are very fond of rules. Somewhere there is a list of them rules, and at some point in the truck-planning phase, he was given a mimeograph copy of one, circa 1973. Every time he found a commercial kitchen that might work, an inspector would come outin his little hard hat and little white coatto pour water on the floor, see which direction it flowed, and tell him why it wouldnt work as an ice cream kitchen.

Long story short, Jake eventually concluded he had to have a clean room where nothing else but the production of dairy occurred. No cooking, no storage, no nothin. After countless inspections of kitchens, all he found was that the inspectors could have saved everyone a helluva lot of time if they had just played the clean room card at the beginning because no commercial kitchen that rents out space was going to have room for one.

But if anything, Jake is and was tenacious. Once he got the idea in his head that he was going to make ice cream for a livingwell, that was it. And now that he knew he had to build his own kitchen, he figured he might as well just open a whole shop.

After another six months of looking around San Franciscos Mission District, he finally stumbled upon 2790 Harrison, just a few blocks from his apartment.

Money was already tight, but Jake jumped into the project, with little to no idea of how it would become a reality. He was rather terrifiedof not knowing what he was doing, of failure, and of blowing all the money his father left him. At this point, he knew he couldnt do it alone. With a fistful of dollarsand not much morein hand, he stepped off the cliff.