SAO Cooks & Catering

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SAO Cooks & Catering Rustic vegan gourmet prepared & served by a southern soul aiming to break bread w/ plant-based love.
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I recognized the quiet sadness back in young SAO years. I experienced something at the literal very end of high school t...
08/19/2026

I recognized the quiet sadness back in young SAO years. I experienced something at the literal very end of high school that awakened me to let go of everyone I’d known. Many pushed away by a very, very quiet & serious Shelby should have been released. And the space needed was created by stepping up in FOH for my first restaurant gig. They wanted me to be on management track. Something in me told me not to, far beyond it just not aligning w/ what were current goals at the time; the Nothing of it all shadowed my consideration and I marched in a very different direction.

Within but a few years of my young professional life—I found myself unable to deny my drive for the hospitality world. Decades later, here I am, rooted powerfully in the kitchen on some self-made chef s**t in perpetual search for proper management roles so that I can, well, cheesy or nah, ‘be the change’.

The irony is, the business network I want to master is called hospitality when it is nothing of the sort to the people who build it & maintain it. It is not lost on me that when I needed to run quickly from trauma, then from closing my food business then again from the boss just after who didn’t care one genuine moment about me losing my dad & the weeks it took to physically do so, that I landed in hospitality. Again. Every bit of what this post details is how even a new hospitality movement claiming to be so much ‘different’ & ‘more current’ & ‘more relevant’ ran its staff when I landed there almost a year ago. I felt it immediately on top of the numbness of deep grief—my head space was not ok. And they. Perpetuated arrogance & apathy.

I am now back in the weeds in a better place working my ass off on several stations often solo b/c something keeps me running back to the kitchen to cook w/ Mama when I need to lick my wounds.

We must quit speaking on burn out w/ shallow awareness & actually revise the business model, train properly & recognize leadership w/ real price points & respect. Because most of us are drawn here deeply. We have to quit asking single people to hold a handful of positions down, while micromanaging any professional boundaries set. We must. Do. Better.

Be. Hospitable.

Yeah. They wanna judge you in your lowest moments as if you aren’t cutting it, as if you haven’t met the marks that they...
08/04/2026

Yeah. They wanna judge you in your lowest moments as if you aren’t cutting it, as if you haven’t met the marks that they aren’t even placing for you clearly, as if your nervous system shut down dangerous cortisol fluctuation spin out moments aren’t perpetuated from within the model.

I have been saying for over a decade, I just wanna be allowed to be human while working. HOTK—nailed it✊

I’m still up to food. I’m still burnt out.I’m still in such deep grief I can’t breathe. I keep offering things to people...
08/02/2026

I’m still up to food.
I’m still burnt out.
I’m still in such deep grief I can’t breathe.

I keep offering things to people that I wish I could receive more. And then my exhale hits the floor to realize I probably wouldn’t push past my anxiety enough to pick up. A phone call even when I don’t have a voice. A thought and even follow through on sharing said thought even while in the middle of the weeds. And then I see. I am just reaching. For his hands. How he would joke at his actual anger when his messages had errors because he was all thumbs. Not one letter incorrect. A text, a meme late at night while still sitting in the driveway from a 10-11 hour day constantly prepping & cooking & making plates. A family meal when I can barely stand. Context with real emotion if I need to change plans & even extended guilt as if letting them down when in reality I don’t have the energy to even whisper ‘I’m sorry’. I’m still numb. And angry.

I’m still not ok.
I’m still seeking grace.
I still want to crawl further back into my cave where no one can find me. But are you looking? Am I worth searching? Do I even give enough to deserve a search light? I can’t see me, so how can you be so bright?

I wish these plates were feeding my soul. I wish they were being served to my Atlanta community from my porch. I wish this time last year I had gone home to spend his last two weeks with him. I wish I had run my business down south so I could help him embrace plant based living before the massive double heart attack due to extreme blockages, worn out stints and dangerously altering blood pressures with insufficient circulation stacked. I wish I had never moved away.

Wishes are for puppets though. I am not Geppetto & I can’t see the stars for the tears.

The grief.
The fear.
The food.
Isn’t it art to you?

Plates & Purgatory
SAO

*it’s just poetry; don’t let it scare you

I don’t know how it’s been 10 months. I don’t mean in a figure-of-speech kinda way, I mean, literally—time has evaded. I...
07/02/2026

I don’t know how it’s been 10 months. I don’t mean in a figure-of-speech kinda way, I mean, literally—time has evaded.

I don’t know when I’d realize that this is reality. All I’ve done for almost a year is stumble, fall, barely get up then stumble again.

I don’t understand why my work life has been such a consequence to this grief. More a final cumulative effect of the grief of closing my business, but the path has been so specifically specific since my journey south to say goodbye—I am exhausted, in need of change so much that it truly hurts. But why?

I don’t breathe most days. I find myself holding my breath trying to find the magical inhale of hearing your voice, feeling your hug, making you laugh.

I don’t think mourning has even begun because I still don’t think I have seen the sun since the day you finally exhaled last. And I keep searching for the morning that wakes me up.

I don’t how to explain the way my body feels this ripple effect. The way I have ignored the calendar as much as possible and how hard it hits me when I realize.

I don’t know how you mustered enough energy to fly back to the airport tower chatter I played by your ear so I could just see your eyes see me one more time—but you did and that day feels like the last time I was real.

I don’t know how to get back home. And I am exhausted from trying so I will just sit with this somewhat Atlanta worthy humidity that just rolled in up top and close my eyes and remember the days of The Scrambler, doors and roof off, me on “the hump” in the middle, the stick shift making me want to learn to drive it so bad, the dirt roads and you somehow knowing where all the creeks crossed the gravel so we could “Dukes of Hazard” our way around Southside backroads—you would literally yeeeeeeehawwww like Luke Duke and pretend we were jumpin’ the ramp over the water. We would have our bathing suits on and the splash russssshhhed in through the doors and soaked our faces. Our giggles made you glow, not smile, glow with all your beautiful freckles golden.

I don’t know how we got here. So fast. If I could go back I woulda lived with you all summer last year to scramble the days away.

The Scrambler & My Dad

Working for a toxic company, corporate, highly unaccountable, no structure in such an intense position where I was not a...
06/09/2026

Working for a toxic company, corporate, highly unaccountable, no structure in such an intense position where I was not actually valued or respected was not the wisest of moves during my first month of losing daddy. Where comments were made constantly, not in efforts of consistency by any means, to actually scoff & judge & belittle. A “culture” performative in all layers with no grace provided for leadership who were being “managed” via passive-aggressive avoidance at best. Me as Exec. Chef never felt real anyway. Not in those capacities. But me a YES MAN in a spot run like that? Ha. Taking that spot a week after returning from the 6-week bereavement time warp of losing daddy & myself was never going to fruit in longevity. But putting my all into such an intense role, all the unbelievable hard work & the kitchen program developed in 3 months, designed, documented, the food cost tightened up in 4, the inventory mastered, the 30-page recipe manual completed, tested & tested, taught & polished for the time I was there—all of those things were real. The shallow people irresponsible with me as a human, were real. And it broke me when it ended. As if a grieving daughter can be broken any more.

So much of me has given up on myself and all the dreams I had of providing a life for my family while still maintaining professional boundaries and defining my own path. But, somehow I push through hand-in-hand with the humility to show what’s important. Small business, independent business, family/community-centered business with people who, see you, appreciate you & truly feel the gratitude in return. What’s important is hard work, a real team. And s**t, how ‘bout just a kitchen where s**t talk still exists, where screaming out HEARD & 86 feels like magic.

So. The Kitchen Transitions continue since selling my food cart & trying to find me + food + provisions for family. And there just may be a local kitchen, the venue & plates being my #1 go-to before landing on the other side of their flattops—where you can find some SAO Carnitas inspired Local King Trumpets all dressed up for your table. Just maybe. Just maybe you should…STAY TUNED.

*Pizza just b/c you can’t waste the🎺

✊✊✊ with .repost・・・“Joy is an act of resistance.” -Toi DerricotteI’m finding it increasingly difficult to show up in ...
02/08/2026

✊✊✊

with .repost
・・・
“Joy is an act of resistance.” -Toi Derricotte

I’m finding it increasingly difficult to show up in this space, to not let anger and hopelessness get the best of me - to not feel powerless. I don’t need to get into how I feel about what is happening in our country. It doesn’t really matter how I feel, just what I do.

I still dance in the grow room when I’m sowing seeds for the coming season-sometimes I cry, and sometimes I scream.

We are raffling off a Flower party. You and up to 7 friends, 2 hrs unleashed with overflowing buckets of gorgeous seasonal blooms in our studio/workshop space at the farm with everything you need to create floral joy. You can dance, cry, scream…plan…create.

For every $10 donation you make to an organization directly supporting those being targeted by this administration your name will be entered into the raffle-so $30 equal 3 raffle tickets. Message me or post your donation here to be entered. Drawing will be held on March 1st. Flower Parties can be scheduled between 7/1 and 10/1 2026.

No matter how many, or how few entries, it helps and drawing will be held 3/1. Please share widely as the algorithm is not in our favor.

Recommended organizations:



Let go.Shed.Step in.Arrive.
12/02/2025

Let go.
Shed.

Step in.
Arrive.

TOGETHER.We. Can.
11/05/2025

TOGETHER.
We. Can.

This. Is. Actual. Community.TOGETHER is the only way.
11/05/2025

This. Is. Actual. Community.

TOGETHER is the only way.

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Parsonsfield, ME

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