My name is Shelley Jaffe, and I am a multi-award winning chef with over 33 years experience. I chose food as my art at the age of 18 months old while watching my great, great aunt make a lattice top pie. By the time I was 10 I was cooking dinners for my sister and my single mother. In my teens, that same great, great aunt, along with my grandmother, helped me hone my cooking and baking skills, while my uncle taught me how to garden. Throughout my teens I spent my summers working in Farmer Pritchett’s fields, and my evenings and weekends cooking and baking for the family, often using fresh, local ingredients.
At 22 I was fortunate enough to start my culinary career with Food Services of America and learned under four accomplished chefs, two of which were CIA (Culinary Institute of America) graduates who I also happened to live with at the time.
By the age of 30 I was catering using fresh, local ingredients grown in Washington State. I grew up farm-to-table, so it only made sense to me to carry this into my career. I later created, opened, and ran a profitable organic farm-to-table restaurant. Unfortunately, the majority owner developed Alzheimers and we were forced to close. But like everything in my life, it was a learning experience for me and gave me the confidence needed to own and operate my own place.
In 2018 my husband Larry and I opened The Scone Age Bakery and Cafe in Dunedin, Florida. I took traditional European-style pastries and breads and made them healthier, as well as developing a line of grain-free, gluten-free baked goods using whole food ingredients. Unlike many others creating these baked goods, mine did not contain refined ingredients like starches and refined nut and coconut flours. I chose to use freshly milled nuts, as well as cassava flour. Our bakery and the recipes I developed earned 6 awards in the three years, but our most cherished part of having The Scone was all of the friends we made and the community we created.
It was a huge success, but I still was not satisfied. I was creating foods which contained too many empty calories which contribute to poor health, and I knew I could do so much more. So in February 2022, Larry and I sold the bakery and launched UnRefined.
Since selling the bakery, I have thrown myself into researching and developing an completely unrefined recipes. It has taken me more years than I care to count to reach this point, but I am proud to have gained the knowledge and experience to create these recipes. And now after months of calculating, measuring, taste testing, and feeding lots of samples to my foodie followers, we have launched with my book Becoming UnRefined!.