FEATURE
PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF JOY SMITH
Finding Joy in Food Sorelle’s Joy Smith prepares tons of grab-and-go dishes in her new space
BY STEPHANIE GIBSON LEPORE When you ask Joy Smith how long she’s been into cooking and what first piqued her interest, she’ll tell you two things: Always, even going back to pretend play in the kitchen when she was a little girl, and her mom, who cooked everything herself, from baking bread to beautiful pies and all the other dishes in between. “She was a single mom and a huge influence on me,” says Joy. “I learned a lot of things from watching her in the kitchen.” Joy’s love for cooking never waned, and she eventually moved on from plastic play food to the real thing. “My first job was in a kitchen,” she says. “Front of the house, back of the house—it just comes natural for me to be there. I do love to cook, but I really love to feed people. When I see somebody eat something and enjoy it, well, I just love to be a part of that.” And she was, working in various restaurants while obtaining a psychology degree from UAB and then falling into teaching. She was at Creative Montessori in Homewood for 10 years, where she continued to work as a server on the side. While at Creative Montessori, Joy had the opportunity 12 Bham Family March 2022
to take on the role of food service director, and she took the opportunity to revamp the entire lunch program at the school. “I helped the students plant an organic garden—we planted, picked, and cooked the green beans we grew. We made it fun,” she says. “And then I was able to get fresh fruits, veggies, and a salad bar into the lunch program. And my reward was seeing everyone love the food.” Even though she loved her job, she had kept a childhood memory tucked away, and it was starting to nag at her heart. “When I was 7 years old, my mom and I were driving in Michigan [where they lived at the time], and she saw a little shed and said, “Now, wouldn’t that be the cutest little restaurant! You could do pot roast on Thursday, chicken pot pie on Friday…” ,” Joy recalls. “It sounded so fabulous! But my mom was a nurse and it just never happened for her. But the fantasy stayed with me, and I had a burning passion to make it reality.” So, exhausted from teaching and wanting to chase her dream, Joy left her job and started feeding people through catering jobs. “I didn’t CONTINUED ON PAGE 13
