Interview with Andrea Racca of Bobboi Organic Gelato

Finn’s 1st Gelato

My husband, Massimo, is from Florence, Italy, so food plays a big part in our life. Anyone who knows me also knows that I am super anti-sugar but I make exceptions for amazing specimens of sugar, for example real Italian gelato. When my first son, Finn, was born I had a goal of not letting him have any sugar for as long as possible – I broke down when he was 19-months and had gelato at a family owned gelateria in Marina di Pietrasanta, Italy. It is amazing when you have real Italian gelato – it makes it difficult to ever enjoy ice cream again.

Every year we host an Ice Cream Social at Carmel Mountain Preschool. I’ve been having a hard time continuing to host it as we have moved towards only serving organic food and moving further away from sugary items. We have made some changes in recent years such as providing organic fruit to go with it versus other sugary toppings but I still had a hard time serving our students commercially made ice cream as I felt it wasn’t in line with our core values. At the same time, I think it is a very important Carmel Mountain Preschool event because it’s nostalgic and a great social event for parents and students. We searched high and low for an organic ice cream maker that would provide organic ice cream to Carmel Mountain Preschool at a reasonable price and were out of luck.

In the meantime, we had become friends with Andrea Racca who owns Bobboi Natural Gelato in La Jolla, California. Andrea and his wife, Monica, are super down-to-earth sweet people who truly love making others happy. I told Andrea that we have an excess of organic passion fruit growing at Carmel Mountain Preschool and he offered to show the children how to make gelato and to make gelato for the children in exchange for passion fruit. The Carmel Mountain Preschool students have been taking great care of our passion fruit plants and have been picking them for Andrea. We feel pride that our Carmel Mountain Preschool passion fruit are going into making gelato that is rated as the, “…#1 best ice cream shops in America”, according to Yahoo Food and “Hoodline crunched the numbers to find the top 50 ice cream shops around the country using Yelp data since May and Bobboi is the number one ice-cream place in the US out of 18,700 ice cream shops” (http://hoodline.com/2017/06/the-scoop-on-america-s-top-50-ice-creameries-is-philadelphia-on-top). I sat down with Andrea to find out more about Bobboi Gelato. We look forward to having Bobboi Natural Gelato at our annual Ice Cream Social – we think our Carmel Mountain Preschool children, teachers and parents will be thrilled.

I would change the information about Bobboi being second in the US according to Yahoo to being first in the continental US according to Yahoo foods.

Also, “Hoodline crunched the numbers to find the top 50 ice cream shops around the country, using Yelp data since May” and we are the number one ice-cream place in the US out of 18,700 (http://hoodline.com/2017/06/the-scoop-on-america-s-top-50-ice-creameries-is-philadelphia-on-top).

Sebastian, Andrea, Finn & Massimo at Bobboi

Do you have any fond memories as a child of gelato?

Gelato is a big part of an Italian family life. In summer, every night after dinner my parents would take my brother and me down to the “piazza” to have a refreshing treat in those hot summer Mediterranean nights.

What is your favorite flavor of gelato?

Pistachio, always!

What did you want to be when you grew up?

Free, And I am ????!

How did you get involved in making gelato?

A story of karma. I was working as an executive manager in Italy for a big French corporation. One day I told a friend that I was dreaming of leaving the corporate life and to open a gelato store in California. He was speechless, he told his wife at dinner that he has the exact same dream. We quit our jobs and here we are.

Why did you open a gelato store in San Diego?

I graduated from USD in 1989 as a foreign student. I went back home to Italy to work and always had a dream to come back to San Diego. And I want to make people happy – making gelato is how I know how to make people happy.

We are so excited to trade passion fruit for gelato. Do people still barter in Italy?

I must say that I have found more opportunities here to barter. San Diegans are very open minded and giving.

Are there any fun traditions involving gelato in Italy that we should start practicing in America?

There are two aspects of gelato life that I love. I love the after dinner gathering with family and friends away from home creating community. I also love the concept of “poco poco”, which can be translated to “have just a little, but every day”.

Are there any gelato recipes you have that would be easy for parents to make with their children?

Absolutely, my two favorite recipes would be easy to make with little ones. You can do this with a Kitchen Aid ice-cream accessory or ice cream maker.

ORGANIC PISTACHIO GELATO

Ingredients

• Two and a half cups organic whole milk
• A third of a cup organic heavy whipping cream
• One cup organic evaporated cane sugar
• Half teaspoon Mediterranean sea salt (no salt if pistachios come salted)
• One cup organic roasted pistachio kernels

What to do

1. Pour milk and cream in a pan and warm up.
2. Mix sugar and salt in a bowl and pour in the warm milk and cream.
3. Mix and bring to 150F
4. Turn stove off and let the mix rest for four hours.
5. When mixture is cool, pour into a blender/vitamix and mix pistachios at maximum speed for one minute.
6. Pour mixture into an ice-cream or gelato machine for about a half of an hour and follow the machine’s directions.

ORGANIC ATAULFO MANGO GELATO – dairy free and vegan

Ingredients

• 1 pound organic Ataulfo mango – pulp
• 1 cup organic evaporated cane sugar
• 10 fluid ounces water

What to do

1. For one pound of mango pulp you will need about two pounds of whole mangoes (about five mangoes).
2. Mangoes must be ripe with a warm yellow to orange pulp.
3. Mix pulp with water and sugar in a blender.
4. Blend until you get a smooth mixture.
5. Pour mixture into an ice-cream or gelato machine for about a half of an hour and follow the machine’s directions.

Thank you Andrea & Monica and we look forward to serving your amazing gelato at Carmel Mountain Preschool’s Ice Cream Social. You can learn more about Bobboi Natural Gelato and find their locations in San Diego at http://bobboi.com/.