Welcome to my blog, ShawnsPlate.com! ShawnsPlate was originally started in August of 2011 and was meant to share recipes and to advertise my all natural cleaning products business, Home Fresh Home. While that business didn’t survive, I absolutely loved blogging! But since blogging was a “hobby”, I put it on the back burner to take a traditional job and to spend more time with my daughter, Alyson, as she entered her senior year of high school and prepared for going off to college.

Well, a fabulous thing happened*…The company that I worked for was sold and since their corporate offices are in Texas, they decided to close the offices here in Maryland. As I considered starting over again in the corporate world I thought, ‘I’d love to be home developing recipes, taking care of projects around the house, and sharing it all via blogging.  Why not give myself the opportunity to seriously work as a blogger?!’

If you’re new here, I hope that you enjoy this site and find it helpful.  If you’ve been here all along, I hope that you like the new format.  All in all, I hope that you will find that ShawnsPlate.com is where fabulous food meets everyday life!

*I realize that the business closure was not fabulous for everyone 🙁

P.S. You can see my original “About Me” page by clicking Read More.

 

~About Shawn~

I’m LaShawn, Shawn, to family and friends and my whole life has been about food…Born in the South, Birmingham, Alabama, to be exact, you learn early the importance of good food.  My earliest memories are spending time with Auntie in her kitchen.  Auntie was well known for the wonderful food that she created.  On my 10^th birthday, she gave me the bestest gift in the whole world…She taught me to bake her 3 layer cake.  I was hopelessly hooked!  When I wasn’t cooking, I was thinking about and dreaming of cooking.
By the time I was 13, I began baking for profit…Over the years, I became known in my own right for my baking, decorating, and catering talents.  Even though, I held a traditional corporate position in the insurance industry, baking and creating recipes were my first loves.  All of my free time was spent working for my own business, Sweet Secrets, a gourmet dessert and wedding cake supplier.  I was then able to open my own library-based coffeehouse, The Literary Café.  This project taught me that I could do anything!  The Literary Café had such buzz, I was even called on to offer and create recipes for the local newspaper, The Birmingham News.  After selling The Literary Cafe, I would move on to a successful career as an event director…No baking involved and entirely too much time away from my husband and daughter…I was way off course from my original dream of writing my own cookbooks…Something had to give 🙁

 

A while ago, I saw the Ephron sisters being interviewed about their stage play, ” Love, Loss, and What I Wore”.  Of course, it made me think of all of the things that have happened in my life.  While I could remember what I wore, it was remembering what I ate that really hit home for me…
For example, on that 10th birthday, I wore rust corduroy pants and a yellow blouse…Okay, it was the 70’s… But, what jogs that memory is the three layer, vanilla cake with chocolate frosting and store bought candy decorations.  The first meal that I cooked for my husband was fettuccine alfredo with bay shrimp and fried chicken strips(I wore a red floral dress).  The pulled sugar ribbons that adorned my wedding cake, meant more to me than the colors that I chose for the bridesmaids(Purple & Fushia…Okay, it was the 80’s).  The last meal that I ate prior to giving birth to my daughter was pasta with crab meat and jumbo fried shrimp(60 pounds over weight, hot & sweaty…I was wearing a pink and white striped mumu…Okay, I make no apology).  You get the picture…It’s all about the food.
Fast forward to now…As a wife, mother, business owner, and hopeful cookbook writer, I’ve got a lot on my plate.  I thought that a blog would allow me to share my day to day life and the fabulous food that we enjoy.  Shawn’s Plate is where fabulous food meets everyday life!