Lauda Flores is reviving a sweet family tradition.

“Artisanal cold treats run deep in my family,” Lauda Flores, founder of Sno Con Amor, tells us after a day selling raspados (snow cones) and bolis (ice pops) to the people of Los Angeles. Her parents moved to L.A. from Mexico City in 1976 and opened Los Alpes Paletería in the largely Hispanic area of Huntington Park not long afterward. At its height, their ice cream and popsicle shop offered over 100 flavors, with innovations like the locally famed frijol (bean) ice cream. “I was about eight years old,” Flores recalls. “It’s where my obsession with ice cream started.”

That obsession comes through in the fresh, wholesome ingredients Flores uses in all of her frozen desserts, not to mention her inventive flavors (strawberry rosewater, orange vanilla bean). “I love delivering joy to people in the form of a treat,” she says. Flores’ business also gives something back to her—the satisfying sense that she’s part of a larger community. “My customers are the best, and I love working directly with farmers,” she says, acknowledging the fresh fruits, berries, and herbs that are at the heart of her work.

But most essential to what Flores does is pay homage to those who’ve gone before her. She remembers the street vendors of her youth, their raspado carts heavy with the blocks of ice they’d hand-shave. “They still abound in the capital of Mexico,” she marvels. That may be the sweetest part for her—the sense that she’s sharing a piece of her lineage. “These snow cones, they’re in my blood,” she says. “They’re in my culture.” ❤