Chiara Cooks Canon

Since I was little I've had many so-called "obsessions" but none has stuck with me as long as baking. Whether it was in elementary school where I checked out a chapter book about pie every week and copied down all the recipes at the end. Or in middle school where I would run home after band practice to watch "Cake Boss" and eat Tyson frozen chicken patties, while scavenging for ingredients I could slap together to make something edible to sell to my friends the next day. In high school, my business took off after I convinced my more popular and personable theater class friend to sell my baked goods if I gave her a cut.

Throughout every stage of my life I have found baking to be the thing that brings me the most joy. However, when I was in my senior year of high school and I proposed the idea of me attending culinary school to my mom she almost immediately shut it down. It was too expensive and her friends had told her it was not worth it. If I wanted to learn she could ship me off to Italy to live with my cousins and work in an Italian bakery. At my 17 years of age I was terrified of this. I didn't want to cost my parents any more money after my brother had graduated from a private school all the way across the country. And how could I live in a foreign country with family I barely knew and a language I barely spoke! I decided to put my dream of being the next cake boss aside and decided to attend normal college and study something needed for a normal office 9-5 job.

After I graduated high school and before I moved on to my typical college experience (that was not interrupted by anything) I had a life changing experience. I had been sick all summer and after growing up as a kid that got sick super easily I thought nothing of it. I kept refusing to go to the doctor because I had been told so many times before that nothing was wrong with me or that I just needed to lose weight. Towards the end of august after a series of gory mornings and vision-blurring headaches I agreed to go see a new doctor. They immediately believed all of my symptoms and after a few weeks of tests I found out the cause for my distress was an incredibly rare adrenal tumor. Lucky me! I remember the minute the doctor told us my mom burst into tears and I almost busted out laughing. I was just thinking that it was real, that everything that was happening to me was real and valid. The doctor quickly went over everything that would happen post-diagnosis and while I comforted my mom I thought about how lucky I was to have been diagnosed and to have a wonderful team of doctors who were ready to help me. With the help of many amazing people who helped donate to or share my GoFundMe page I was able to pay for surgery. Although I have some heart issues and I'm one adrenal gland down, I'm happy to still be baking today.

If I'm thankful to that little tumor for anything it would be for teaching me to do what I enjoy and not listen or care to what other people are doing. It did take me many years post-tumor (PT) to learn this lesson but I promise I did. I thoroughly enjoyed my first almost year of college before I was sent home by the pandemic. Pandemic times are honestly a blur for me but I got my first real job where I met one of my closest friends and re-started my little baking business. I sold some cakes and bread before I got the email that I could return to my lovely college campus for what would be my 3rd and final year.

This time around I had an off-campus apartment with 3 roommates (including my freshman year roommate and my childhood best friend), a job at a bakery (unfortunately not as a baker), and more health issues! I was set up for a pretty decent final year of college and then sabotaged again. I'm not going to lie I had a tough time at my apartment. I wanted to bake and cook but lacked the motivation and I was feeling awful 90% of the time. I resorted to frozen Trader Joe's meals and DoorDashing every other meal. I was also having a hard time living with my roommates and just trying to take care of myself. My job was the highlight of my final year of school. I loved the people there, the smell of fresh bread every morning, and just learning about all the different pastries our little shop had to offer. Bonus was the amazing dirty chai I got every single day I worked there and miss everyday I exist without it.

When I had another major health scare just weeks away from graduating I had to make the difficult decision to quit my job. I was once again plunged into a world where I was not constantly surrounded by baking and I was sad. I graduated with non-baking related degrees and was faced with the decision of what to do with my life now. I spent the summer stressing over what to do with my life and having an emergency surgery on my 21st birthday before landing a job as a TA for an elementary school. I loved this job but my bosses were not big fans of me. I had (guess what) another health scare about 2 weeks into my new job that left me bedridden for 2 weeks. After this I was in an urgent care limbo after being told that I was a "medical mystery" and no one knew what was going on with me. This of course meant I wasn't sure when I could go to work. I was racked with guilt because I didn't want to let anyone at the school down but I also knew I needed to take care of myself. When I returned to work after a month of working on and off at the school I was asked by the principal of the school to forcibly resign. I was immediately in tears because I had let those kids and teachers down. I was hoping for something to tell me if I should stay on this academic path or follow my passion. Then my family came to visit for thanksgiving and I got the sign that I was looking for.

Ok, I promise that here is where it actually comes back to baking so you just have to read a little more of my life story.

For Thanksgiving I decided to ignore my work troubles and throw myself into the thing I loved most, baking! I was faced with a bit of a challenge though when I learned my Aunt and Uncle were gluten and dairy free. Learning this made me immediately dive into my collection of cookbooks and scour the internet for the best gluten-free rolls and how to tweak my mom's favorite pumpkin pie to accommodate my family's restrictions. I spent a week testing recipes and making a schedule so we could have the perfect meal. My family loved the food and I was ecstatic just to be doing something I loved. People my whole life had asked me if I planned on baking for a living and I had always pushed it off. Hearing my family tell me that baking is what I should be doing really hit me. Seeing that I had people who supported me and wanted to see me happy meant a lot to me. Even my mom who had previously shot down my culinary school idea encouraged me to do what made me happy. For the first time I saw a future where I loved what I did for a living and shortly after that I got my first professional baking job.

Chiara Cooks is a work in progress but it's been a lifelong dream of mine and I'm happy that it is something I am now actively pursuing. I look forward to whatever the future might bring whether it is good or bad (but hopefully its good.) Thank you to everyone who has supported me throughout my life and to everyone who is just joining me in this journey. I can't wait to see where this goes.