When Shoneji Robison moved from Florida to Los Angeles, she came down with a condition that often infects L.A. transplants. She flipped her body, mind, and spirit script.
“I remember getting into this healthier lifestyle that was new for me. I was a vegan for two years,” she says.
Her plant-based culinary lifestyle is now reflected in the menu of Southern Girl Desserts, the 10-year-old bakery Robison co-owns in the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Mall. Among the traditional butter-and-sugar red velvet and sweet potato cupcakes are new desserts stirred up without cream, butter, or eggs. The flavors of the traditional and new, plant-based offerings are inspired by the family recipes of Robison and her business partner, Catarah Hampshire. Both women migrated from the South to Southern California.
But when looking at the portraits of the owners’ mothers, aunties, and grandmothers plastered in a sepia-toned photo display near the entrance of the bakery, I couldn't help but wonder: What would they think of the veganizing of the classic southern desserts?