Hi, I’m Lolytta Jean Monroe, and if you ask me what I do, I’ll tell you, I feed souls.
I was born in 1975 in Charleston, South Carolina, the youngest of five kids in a house that was always loud, loving, and filled with the smell of something simmering. My mother was a quiet storm in the kitchen, strong, steady, and graceful. She never measured anything, but everything she made turned out just right. Her fried chicken could stop arguments. Her banana pudding could dry tears.
By the time I was 8, I was her shadow. Not just because I loved to cook, but because I wanted to be near her. She used to say, “Lolytta, food can be prayer when you don’t have the words.” I didn’t understand that until I was older.
When I was 14, we lost our home to a fire. Everything went up in smoke except our faith and my mother’s battered recipe box. I remember sitting in a borrowed trailer kitchen that Christmas, watching her bake cornbread stuffing from memory, as if nothing had changed. That was the moment I realized food wasn’t just survival. It was identity. It was history. It was hope.
Life didn’t lead me straight into the culinary world. I became a nurse first. Spent years in hospitals, caring for people who were often too sick to eat. And yet, food always found its way back into my story. I cooked for patients’ families. I brought pound cakes to night shifts. I shared sweet potato pies with grieving strangers in break rooms. Cooking was how I held people even when I couldn’t fix them.
At 45, after raising my two boys and watching my youngest head off to college, I finally turned back to the dream I’d tucked away. I quit nursing and opened a small supper club in my own home. Just a few tables, candlelight, and the kind of food that makes you remember your grandmother’s kitchen.
Today, at 50, I run a tiny but mighty soul food café named “Lolytta’s Table” where the greens are slow-cooked, the peach cobbler is always warm, and no one leaves hungry in heart or belly. My recipes are rooted in my family’s legacy, my own lived pain, and the joy of sharing stories across plates.
I don’t aim for perfection in my cooking. I aim for connection.
Because to me, a meal made with love is the most honest way to say: You matter.
Thank you for pulling up a chair.
With all my heart,
Lolytta