Cake Therapy
Cake Therapy is a heartwarming and uplifting podcast that celebrates the transformative power of baking therapy. Hosted by Dr. Altreisha Foster, the passionate baker, entrepreneur and advocate behind Cake Therapy, this podcast is a delightful blend of inspiring stories, expert insights and practical baking tips. Each episode takes listeners on a journey of self-discovery, emotional healing and connection through the therapeutic art of baking.
Cake Therapy
A Conversation with The Tiny Italian - How Cooking Nourishes Body and Soul with Paola Maggiulli
Paola Maggiulli, known as "The Tiny Italian," invites us into her world where culinary arts and self-love converge in surprising, transformative ways. Despite her name, there's nothing small about her mission or impact—she's revolutionizing how we think about food, wellness, and personal growth.
Born to an Italian father and Colombian mother in London, Paola spent 15 years climbing the corporate fashion ladder before a pivotal moment changed everything. When her father's Italian delicatessen closed, she found herself drawn to the kitchen—a place she had previously avoided—to reconnect with her roots. Making a simple tomato sauce became the first step in a profound self-healing journey that would eventually lead her to Italy and a complete career transformation.
With remarkable candor, Paola shares how cooking became her pathway out of depression and burnout. "It wasn't the pasta or the tomato sauce that made the change," she explains. "It was the fact that I had chosen to do something for myself that would make me happy." This realization sparked a methodology that now helps others break free from self-neglect through the therapeutic act of cooking.
The conversation takes us beyond recipes into the cultural philosophy that guides Paola's work—the Italian "Dolce Vita" approach to food that celebrates connection, quality, and finding joy in everyday moments. She challenges conventional wellness narratives that focus on restriction or appearance, instead advocating for a more inclusive vision of self-care through nourishment. "When you finally love yourself, when you truly understand the queen that you are, you are so frigging powerful," she declares with passion that's impossible to ignore.
Ready to transform your relationship with food and yourself? Connect with Paola on Instagram @thetinyitalian or visit her website for her free guide to essential self-care cooking ingredients. Whether you're struggling with burnout, seeking more joy in everyday moments, or simply curious about authentic Italian cooking, this episode offers a feast for both mind and soul.
Remember to subscribe wherever you get your podcast. Share the episodes and let's chat in the comments.
Support the Cake Therapy Foundation:
1. Cake Therapy - Cake Therapy (thecaketherapyfoundation.org)
2 Buy Me A Coffee : The Cake Therapy Foundation (buymeacoffee.com)
3. Buy The Book: Cake Therapy: How Baking Changed My Life https://a.co/d/76dZ5T0
Follow Sugarspoon Desserts on all social media platforms @sugarspoondesserts
Welcome to the Cake Therapy Podcast a slice of joy and healing, with your host, Dr Altricia Foster. This is a heartwarming and uplifting space that celebrates the transformative power of baking therapy. The conversations will be a delightful blend of inspirational stories, expert insights and practical baking tips. Each episode will take listeners on a journey of self-discovery, emotional healing and connection through the therapeutic art of baking. There's something here for everyone, so lock in and let's get into it.
Speaker 2:Hi everyone. Welcome back to the Cake Therapy Podcast with me, your host, dr Patricia Foster. First, I want to take some time to big up all our listeners, our subscribers, and if you're listening and haven't subscribed yet, please go ahead and do so. I'm appreciative of the space. It's anytime I get to sit here and have conversations with you well, with our guests, you know and have you listening in and tuning in. It gives me purpose, really, because these are conversations that I want to have with you. I'm going to encourage you. Please subscribe. This is your slice of joy and healing and I want to bring that to you through food, of course. But today we'll be joining I'm excited, really We'll be joining someone from Italy. Yep, she calls herself the little Italian. I wonder how small she is right.
Speaker 2:Her name is Paola Maguili. She's better known as the tiny Italian. As I mentioned before, she's passionate about Italian food. She's a food expert in Italy, she's a blogger, she's a chef and she's made it her mission to share her authentic flavors and the rich tradition of Italy in her cuisines to a global audience. She is, in fact, available to the global diaspora Through her very popular blog though she does have a very popular blog and her social media platform. She inspires, educates her following Through her popular blog and media platforms. She inspires and educates her followers' popular blog and social media platforms. She inspires and educates her followers popular blog and social media platforms. Paola inspires and educates her followers with mouthwatering recipes, insightful cooking tips and a deep dive into the diverse culinary landscape that exists in Italy.
Speaker 2:I've invited her a couple months now. We finally get a chance to have that conversation. Just got back from vacation my kids from Disney as you can see, I have my Disney necklace on but I've been waiting to have this conversation with her. I am really interested in, you know, taking a deep dive into her culinary expertise. You know, I want to explore the cultural nuances of Italian cuisine and how that, how uncovering that really helps her community. I want to learn the stories behind all of her favorite dishes, because she does have a few, and I believe there's a conversation here.
Speaker 2:There are lessons to learn from her, whether or not you're a seasoned food enthusiast, I would believe, or simply just curious about Italian food or planning to go to Italy wondering what to eat. So this episode, I promise you, you know, will be a feast of your sense. It's your slice of joy and healing. Okay, so welcome Paola, the tiny Italian. Please let me know if I'm pronouncing your name correctly, paola. Thank you so much, paola, for joining us. Paola Maggiuli is a self-love coach and Italian cookery teacher coming to us from Italy. Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 3:You're welcome. Even I don't sound very Italian. I confuse people, but we can explain later all about that.
Speaker 2:I know I really, like I mentioned before, that I'm really looking forward to having this conversation and I love that.
Speaker 3:You mentioned that you don't sound Italian, so let's just spell you know this myth, so you were or were not born in Italy no, so I was born and bred in London town and in London, london city, should I say, but I come from an Italian father and a Colombian mother. Okay, and growing up even though I was born in London I mean, london, I feel like, is a very unique, it's a melting pot of so many beautiful cultures so I was brought up with a lot of Italian and Latin American habits and culture. But, yeah, I'm in Italy now. It's a journey, it's a whole journey to get there, but, um, I know I.
Speaker 2:I want our listeners to know how did you get to Italy and tell me how you stay connected with your. You know the London scenery and the food okay, so.
Speaker 3:So this is going to. You've only got an hour's podcast. I'm going to try and keep this. I'm going to keep it really short and short, abbreviated, please, really abbreviated, okay.
Speaker 3:So, first of all, my dad had an Italian delicatessen in South London for like 20 years, so I grew up with a lot of Italian food. However, I think everyone just assumes that my love for cooking and my love for teaching people Italian dishes or, more importantly, how to love themselves through cookery, through Italian food, is because they thought I was brought up with this Italian deli and actually it had nothing to do with it. It was part of it, but it wasn't the main. It wasn't the main driver. So for me, actually, I started a career in like 20 years ago. I started a career in fashion and I worked in fashion for 15 years, but it was during my time working in high, fast-paced, stressful corporate environment that I started to.
Speaker 3:After a certain time, I started to realize that something wasn't okay like I thought I was. I thought I should be happy, I was successful, I was happy, I was making good money, I was traveling all over the world, but something wasn't right and what happened was that my dad had to sell the delicatessen and for some whatever reason you want to call it I had this like knee-jerk reaction because I thought, okay, this delicatessen that I've had for 20 years and I've hardly paid any attention to, like I used to hate working in it. My dad would ask us to work. Then I used to hate it. I used to think it was like beyond me, like I feel really ashamed to say that now, but but I was like I'm not working in a deli, I'm like high flying. But I wasn't looking back, I wasn't a happy person. I thought I had to be happy. Anyway, the deli sold. I then had this knee jerk reaction to want to hold on to my roots. It's like this subconscious thing of like the deli was like losing part of me without me wanting to be part of it was a very surreal situation because for me, cooking before wasn't that much of an interest. I loved food, but cooking was like I don't have time to cook. Right, I'm too, again, people like me. We don't have time to cook. Like that was my whole mentality anyway.
Speaker 3:I started to just like cook some of my favorite recipes that I remember enjoying when I used to go to holiday Italy every summer I used to like enjoy all my family's food, so I started to teach myself a few things. The first meal I remember that I made was how to make a very simple spaghetti and pomodoro sauce like a tomato sauce, and I was a bit like I remember eating my nonnas back in Italy and I I made this sauce. I found a recipe and I followed it to the tea and I remember just thinking like, oh sure, this isn't, this isn't gonna straight away the negative self-talk, right, this isn't gonna turn out. Yeah, yeah, simple, like I haven't got this right. And then I eventually sat down and ate it and I was like, oh, this is good yeah, really good, it's almost like you were.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's almost like you were paying attention all this time when you thought you were not because you were so into your high fashion yeah, like I.
Speaker 3:Just I didn't. I, it was that that moment was pivotal. Like I always say, that moment in the kitchen massively changed the trajectory of my life, because it wasn't the pasta or the tomato sauce that made the change. It was the fact that I had chosen to do something for myself that would make me happy. Like it gets quite deep. And then I start to reflect on my 15 years before that and then I started to realize that actually it was the first time in a long time that I was prioritizing myself and my needs just by cooking this dish. It didn't happen straight away, but that trajectory happened when I made that meal and I sat down and I went oh my god, this is so delicious. And then this sense of like, proudness and empowerment, oh, like I can do this, like it's not that hard, it's actually really good and I feel really good about myself. Anyway, that carried on for a few months. It didn't really get much deeper, but yeah, again, it gave me a lot of during.
Speaker 3:Spending all that time in the kitchen gave me time to disconnect from work and actually think about my past and how I had been treating myself and, without going into too much detail, I realized I was actually suffering from a bit of depression and I was suffering from really bad burnout and stress because I just was not taking care of myself. Like I was eating really badly, like I would skip meals because I didn't have time, I would buy takeout because it was the easiest thing to do, or I would fit food whenever I could in and eating things like bowls of cereal for dinner. Like, when I look back, there was so much self-neglect when I was looking at those first six months to a year of how I had changed my behavior towards myself and I had transformed my relationship with myself. I had done that through the power of cooking, by just choosing to cook myself food. So, so anyway, to get to the point of how am I here?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Is that eventually? I mean, it's such a long story but eventually I set up, I left the corporate world, I became a qualified teacher, qualified cookery teacher. I got qualified at a cookery school in London. Covid happened, really struggled through COVID because I was self-employed to um create a really successful business through teaching. That's what I realized I was really really good at.
Speaker 3:But come end of covid, um, financially I was struggling because, as we know, after the pandemic, all the costs started to rise around the world and I'm a single girl and I was like I've only got me myself and I to rely on right now. What do I do? And then I had two choices I had go back to my corporate job and make money so that I could keep my flat in my apartment in London, or I sell my flat in London and I tried to find a way to make it work. And so the answer was after a couple of years of trying to figure out where I was going, the universe directed me here Like it was the most as soon as I decided I want to move to Italy. The trajectory was very, very easy and it makes sense, because this is the place that inspires me daily on how to love myself.
Speaker 3:It has, culturally, integrally, the Dolce Vita lifestyle of like looking for joy in every day, learning how to balance the connections over meals with family and friends, the importance of quality ingredients. You know, all of that is everything that I have gone from that young girl who really didn't think that she really mattered in terms of eating, leaning on my dad's culture, for the last, I would say for the last 14 years since that happened, it made sense for me to be in the country where it taught me so much that when I go back to the UK, I can teach them everything that I've learned from here because, being a London girl, just because I live in Italy, I understand exactly what works in Italy and what can work in the UK. It just you don't have to be in Italy to live the Dolce Vita life so you can be anywhere in the world. That's a very, very quick question thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you for abbreviating that for us. You know it's amazing. Your trajectory, though because I was reading on your website, you know, because you have to prep for these conversations where it said you absolutely had no interest in food or working with food, like you mentioned, but then to think that you ultimately found a connection with your culture through food, you know, and I would say, embracing that now full. You know, full on. It's amazing. Tell me about how your dad feels that you completely immersed yourself in his culture and his food.
Speaker 3:I don't know. Do you know what? When I decided to leave my job, my parents were both very, very supportive, because they were like at first I think they were scared, as I think their generation would be. But for them to understand that for me I am channeling a love for a way of living that is through their culture I think that I mean they both, because my mum spends a lot of time in Italy too I mean, I think they're both very much like wow, and like I feel like they've seen me change a lot and I'm still on my journey now, like I haven't really. We never complete the journey. You never complete it, do you really? But like for them, I think, to see someone who you know like you said I had no interest now and they say to me, one of the things they always say is like they're really proud of, like how passionately I can talk about it without even second guessing. It's like it just comes out of you so easily, like you never have to really check what you're saying or think about what you're saying. It's so in you, I feel they.
Speaker 3:I think after like a few months after quitting my job, they were very much like they could see that this was exactly what I was meant to do, because it came so easy to me and it's getting easier and easier and easier. But yeah, I mean, I used to always say I'm a London girl, I'm never going to leave London, this is my home for life. Now I'm like, yeah, I've moved to Italy now, but I do go back, so I don't live here full time, I live here for six months of the year. So it's like six months in Italy, six months in London, because my job is to help people in the UK primarily, and so I can't be here all the time. I have to go back for work and actually show people how you can implement it, because it's one way for me to show them through social media, through marketing, like how to live like this in Italy. But the real work is then showing people how you can actually implement it in the UK. But I'm here for the source of inspiration, yeah.
Speaker 2:I absolutely love that. It sounds like me being oh, I tell everyone, oh, I'm a Jamaican girl but I live here in cold Minnesota, right, but I have to constantly take my turn in going home to try and make a difference sometimes. So you've spent 15 years in this high fashion artsy fashion district. You know finding peace in culinary. How has that? You know how has being in the fashion, was being in the fashion, your experience in the fashion industry, influence what you are doing now? Do you find any?
Speaker 3:um, I mean, I have to admit one thing in terms of like being really passionate and resilient like when I was really passionate about fashion, I was really like, when I give something, I give everything, like so I think, and seeing how, how successful you can be. Like when I give something, I give everything Like so I think, and seeing how successful you can be. Like when you really believe something like hard I mean I don't. I feel like hard work does pay off. But I also think this it's not just hard work If you don't believe in it, it doesn't work. You have to really believe in it and put the work in for things to be able to move forward. I mean, I think those are the two main things like being resilient and just like. It's so easy. I think, and I think this also reflects how people think about themselves when people try something, it doesn't work straight away. People just like, just give up. They're just like oh, it doesn't work for me, it's not meant for me. And I think resilience is something that is so powerful in people and it's it's one of the things that I love to teach people in terms of self-love. It's like things don't always have to be perfect. Things don't always have to be linear, things don't have to always feel easy, but if you really really believe in something and want something, you have to keep on going, you have to put yourself back up and you have to keep on trying.
Speaker 3:So I think those are some of the things from my fashion, um career that I probably have brought into my whole. You know, like you say, my culinary, my culinary art, now that I help with people is like, and I'm very honest with my audience, like when I things aren't feeling good for me, I will be honest with them. Like right now I'm feeling a little bit tough and but I also have a lot of self-reflection. But I know why things aren't easy for me, because I probably have taken my eye off the self-care a little bit. I've probably been working a little bit too hard and I think those sort of things are really key.
Speaker 3:But I think I mean also, I think, other things that I've brought into it is that I was very business-minded. So while I do love to teach people how to cook or how to love themselves through cooking and all those sort of things, I have got a business mind. So I know exactly and you know, and this is why I'm doing. I'm doing it because I want to help the world, but for me to be able to help the world reach more people, I have to have a successful business. I can't just be talking to five people, so having a business mind is like thinking about how can I reach the people that really need my help, like and think about marketing and PR and creating services that take into consideration the needs of others rather than the things that I necessarily love to do and I think that's what my business career also taught me because when you were creating businesses, when you're creating products, you were thinking about that other person in mind in terms of you know, yeah, what do they actually need?
Speaker 3:like it's like someone said to me recently, it's like you tell people what they want to hear, but then you give them what you know.
Speaker 3:So, and there's a lot of that and I've done so much learning and all of that but, yeah, for us to do what we do, we have, you know, we have to create a business that reaches people and reaches the right people, because if you're talking, if you're talking to the, you know if you could be talking to a wall. If you haven't, it's like not having a business set up is like talking to a wall is the way I look at it, because no one's going to be listening to you, yeah, yeah. So I think those are the things that I think that I've taken from my, my corporate career. I love to um, sorry to interrupt, I love to look at my uh, my stats, my um, marketing statistics, because I used to do all that. Give me a spreadsheet and I'm like give me a spreadsheet with, like how I'm performing and then, like, that makes me really happy. But yeah, apart from that, yeah, but it's.
Speaker 2:It's good that you mentioned, though, that you know, even though we're doing these passionate or theseful ventures, that there is a financial component to it and there has to be a business model or a structure around it, because these social enterprises don't work unless there's money and there's an audience, right, so tell us about your model, then, without giving too much of your secrets away like share a little bit about your model, because I want to hear from you how you became this influencer of you know, I call you a food influencer and your journey into becoming a blogger. Is this a part of your model, because this podcast is a part of my business model? Talk to us a little bit more. Yeah, about the tiny Italian.
Speaker 3:Do you know what I think? I have to admit that when I started my whole tiny Italian because I started as a blogger in 2010, when I started blogging. I did not think for one minute that I'd be sat here talking to you today on a podcast that was a part of my model.
Speaker 3:My blogging started because I wanted accountability for myself. It was a way for me to learn Italian recipes, and I created a website because I like to give myself challenges. I created a website that I could put up my own recipes up there, thinking that no one would ever read my recipes. And then, lo and behold. You know, when you put effort into something, you know things happen. So I started off with the blogging and then, when I quit my job in 2017, I was a qualified chef, but before then I went.
Speaker 3:I started on Instagram, so I started blogging 2010. I think I started on Instagram, so I started blogging 2010. I think I started on Instagram. What do you want to know? My account is old. My account is like 2012,. My Instagram account, but I didn't start to use it properly till about 2016, 2017. And then that's what I started. That was probably, I think, my website and my Instagram account was when I started to communicate more about the things that I did.
Speaker 3:But back in the day, everything I did was just about Italian food and recipes. There was no self-care element. There was no self-love element. It was like here's how to cook the perfect carbonara, like that. That, that was me like that, but then no one was doing it, so I was one of the I have. So I was one of the I have. I think I was one of the first women in the UK that put their face to dishes, because you remember, back in the day people used to just create dishes and you wouldn't actually see people. So I used to. Then I was one of the first people and it snowballed really quickly, like I got invited by the Italian embassy to do things for them. They started to ask me to interview Italian chefs.
Speaker 3:So I guess, in terms, it wasn't a model that I had planned, but I guess what? I realized that things like collaborations and PR works really well. I think PR is really, really powerful. I think PR. I think where Instagram, I think, had its moment, like in the late, I think Instagram 2018 to 2021, I thought was amazing, I think everyone that was using it really well. I had like my biggest burst in that year and those people had my biggest burst.
Speaker 3:But then it starts to get saturated and then big corporate brands started to realize the power of Instagram, so then more people using it. So then your reach got shorter, right? So but for me, I think one of the things are in terms of my model moving forward. I have really focused on, like, what my strengths are, and my strengths are even though sometimes I'm really tired when it comes to social media that I just want to write, I just want to take a photo and do a post I know the way that I connect with people is me being on screen and talking, so for me it's like I still use Instagram, even though I get really frustrated with it because it's not. I know, I remember it. I remember the good old days days?
Speaker 2:yeah, absolutely me too. I really use it now and I know it's a key piece of my puzzle, but I it's hard to get on there. Tell me a little bit more about your views. Um, you mentioned that there's PR is important. Yeah, tell me, yeah, talk to us a little bit about that.
Speaker 3:But listen like yeah so like pr, I think, is one of those things where you know it's about giving value to people. It's about the pr is like choosing the right forms of, I think, like tools, whether it's publications or radio or podcast, tv, youtube, whatever. It's about knowing how to get in front of the right, in front of the right people, and so you're using these other platforms to. It's not about selling yourself, because PR don't like you necessarily selling a service or product, unless it's on one of those pages where you know they're looking at like the month's best selling self-care products or services, but it's about providing value to people in a way that isn't so obvious, like it would be like on social media. It's like using someone else's platform because it is using platform, someone else's platform, to reach further out and I think when you've got that, that's like a form of like a collaboration, because you've got another name associated with you. So I've been. So, for example, I have been um interviewed a few times for like, like British newspapers where I get mentioned, or magazines, and just having that by just being that person that, say, a journalist comes to you to ask you the question. They, you know they've come to you because you're an expert. So what that does? It enhances your authority. So it enhances your authority and if you're, if you're in front of the right audience, then they have. You have the opportunity for people to like look into who you are. If you, if they like what you've said, they're looking to who you are, and if they're looking to who you are, they're looking to your services and things like that. So it's another way of like. For me, pr is about establishing your authority more than selling. You use it, you leverage it to be able to enhance your business and grow sales. But it is definitely about enhancing your authority, enhancing your expertise, becoming the person that is a specialist in your area.
Speaker 3:And I think pitching to journalists, pitching to tv producers, like pitching to someone like yourself, like a podcast host, and say this is you know, you can't just pitch to everyone. You have to pitch with people that have the same values or have the right audience, otherwise it's not going to make sense. There's no point me talking about self-love to a financial journalist. There's just like there's no point. But it would make sense to maybe speak to a journalist who looks after sort of like the spiritual mind column or you know, or someone who, or even a journalist who's looking into write a positive, who wants to share a positive lifestyle story about someone who got through a hard time, then I would pitch myself that because I've been through that and I can talk to that.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, I think PR is for me. I've been through that and I can talk to that. So, yeah, I think PR is for me. I've been doing a lot of PR in the last. I would say I've been really working on my PR the last six months and I've been featured a couple of times. But it's still like but it's something that you have again, resilience is important.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:You're going to get. I've sent emails to journalists. I've not even had a reply, but I have to just be like okay, I just wasn't right for them. It doesn't matter. Find another magazine you want to write to. Maybe your pitch wasn't right, maybe your idea wasn't exactly what they were looking for.
Speaker 3:You have to spend with anything in life, like with any model, any business model you choose. I think you have to really be really focused. Try not to do too many things. Pick a pick the things that really work for you and be intentional and give it time and space spreading yourself too, thin
Speaker 3:spreading yourself too thin does not get you anywhere, and I've I've learned that through my own, through my own, creating my own business. Because when you're one person, sometimes you're doing, you're creating. Because when you're one person, sometimes you're doing you're creating the content, you're editing the content, you're writing the caption, you're sending out the email, then you're teaching, you're creating the recipes for the class. You're writing. It's too much, so you have to actually look at how much time you've got in the week and be realistic. What can I get done? But what can I get done really really? What can I get done really really well? And I think we can end up looking into different models and doing different things, but I think one thing at a time and give an intentional, be intentional and give it space.
Speaker 3:It's the only way you're going to be able to really make something work for you and learn. It's not you're not going to be, you're not going to be excellent at it straight away. I think that's something that people also have to. People who are high achievers also have to remember just because you've been, you've been good at doing something else, I mean you're going to be necessarily straight away good at something. You've got to learn. It's like going back to school, learning, you know, trying things out, falling, falling down, getting. Just.
Speaker 3:If you, at the end of the day, if you really believe in what you're offering to people, if you really believe that you are really able to help people and you want to get out there in front of more people, you, you, they, you. What's what I'm trying to say? You cannot give up. Don't give up for them and don't give them up. Don't give up for yourself. It's it's a two-way street. You don't want to. I don't want to let people down, because I know what I've got to offer is so special, so I'm going to keep on going. But I also don't want to give up for myself, because this is something that I'm super passionate about yes, absolutely do not give up on yourself.
Speaker 2:Um, when you, when you mentioned that you've written to numerous magazines, girl, I remember when I was launching my book I wrote to several television tv stations, like here I'm launching this book, cake Therapy, how Baking Changed my Life. But only one showed up. But I was excited about that one because I didn't give up on myself. So it resonates with me. You know what I mean. I connect there. But on Tiny Italian, this is a place where you share your recipes, and your, I would say, favorite, or your family recipes, or yours, the ones you've developed right. Talk to me a little bit more about a favorite recipe of yours so our listeners can hear, and the story behind why this particular dish is your favorite.
Speaker 3:I've got so many. This is so hard because I my favorite dishes all depend on my mood and depends on season, because there are some things that I love to do in the summer and there's some things that I love to do in the day. I think one of the things I love to do and I get so much pleasure out of it, it's something that I really love to teach my, my students, my clients. It's just even how to make a. Really I was gonna sound so boring, so boring, so I'm going to apologise right now.
Speaker 3:This is not going to be the most glamorous dish ever, but I love making like stews, like a really good stew, because it's all about layering. It's all about, first of all, with a stew, you've got to have patience, you have to like, you cannot be running around like a headless chicken in the kitchen. You have because with a stew, it's all about layering. You've got your first layer of like aromatics, then you've got your spices, and then you've got your vegetables, maybe, and then you've got your you know whatever liquid you're going to form it, but it's it's constant, like layers and layers. And I mean I have a fish stew that I love to make. It's a fish prawn potato stew and I love it because it's like it.
Speaker 3:It's all about putting all these different layers of ingredients in, but also I love all the different, um, all the different aromas that hit your nostrils at every single layer. It's just completely like it's different. It's not a very typical Italian dish at all, but it I've created my version so it has like Italian flavors in it. But I also just love the fact that it's one of those dishes because, again, I'm also a realist. I know how busy people are and I always say to people I always encourage people to love themselves through cooking. Like I feel like when people need to start their self-love journey, if they haven't started it yet, one of the best places to kick start in the kitchen, and for me, I'm a realist. So something like a stew is something that I would teach a client because it's something that you can make in a batch form. Yeah, you don't have to cook every night to love yourself, but the most important thing is that you're feeding yourself well.
Speaker 3:That's what I always say it's like feeding yourself with really delicious and nutritious food, because they can both go together, because I feel like a lot of people just think healthy food is just like. I don't know. When I look at lots of food influences, I'm a bit like oh, your food does not look appetizing to me at all, but I believe that the Mediterranean way that people live, you know, and so the stew, for me it's like again, it entails patience. It's all about all the different flavors. It's about giving it space, giving attention, building up. It's a lovely dish that you can then make and you can feed yourself it for like three days.
Speaker 3:I've had people say to me yeah, but aren't you bored of eating the same thing three days, three days in a row? I'm like, if it's delicious and it makes me happy, why am I not going to want to eat it three days in a row? And if it's helping me because I'm having a really busy week, that's a way of loving myself like, do you know what I mean? So I think for me it's it's not always just the recipe, it's about how that recipe is going to help me to love myself in the week. Like for me this and I don't know if anyone else thinks like the way that I do when it comes to cooking sometimes. But I'm I'm thinking ahead.
Speaker 3:Like I went today to the to the butchers, and I got some chicken breasts and I'm like he gave me loads. I mean, I took the eye off the ball. I should have just told him to. Just I didn't realize how much he was giving me. But instead of like going oh no, I've got chicken breast for the whole week, I'm like okay, what can I make for this chicken breast? Like, what are two, three things I can make out of it? You know, like, get excited, like, and it doesn't have to be difficult, it doesn't have to be complicated, it can just be beautiful. And For me, like cooking is just about bringing joy into your life.
Speaker 3:Like yeah, you're working hard all day, but you can create something that gives you joy for 10 minutes while you're sat at the table.
Speaker 2:I think that's a huge win, because they do say like healthy eating habits are directly tied to people's mental health and their well-being. So I would like to kind of, you know, segue into that you know, to find out from you how has cooking impacted your own mental health journey and really what drew you to take a deeper dive into the therapeutic aspects of it.
Speaker 3:So I think when I spoke to, I think at the beginning of the podcast, we talked about how I got through Italy. I think for me, one of the three things when I started my self-love journey I used to always call it my cooking journey. Now I've realized it was a self-love journey because there was three things that cooking did for me. And before I started cooking, when I look back now, my mental health was terrible. It was terrible because I was really neglecting myself, but also because I had a lot of trauma that I hadn't dealt with. So, as with the trauma, with the stress, with the burnout, the mental health was terrible. But I can, and the reason why I'm telling you this is because I instantly could feel the difference in myself within a few weeks of just cooking more like I could. I noticed it. That's why, and and the difference was was that I was no longer skipping meals. I was no longer eating cereal for dinner. I was no longer eating a bag of crisps and two pints of beer after work. What was happening is that I was introducing more fresh food into my life daily, because at least in a time anyway, that's how it started with me was dinner time when I come home from work. Now it's three times a day for me, but that's because I'm at the other end of my journey. But one of the things I noticed that, by introducing more fresh food into my life, I noticed that I physically looked better because I wasn't so bloated, because I was. I also reduced the amount of alcohol I was drinking because, rather than go to the pub every night, I would actually go to, I would actually go to supermarket. What I would spend on beer I would end up spending on food, right, yeah? So then I was, I was, I was eating more fresh food. So I noticed that I physically look better, I look less bloated, but I felt like I had more energy and I felt more lively, Like I felt like I had more to give in me. Secondly, I noticed that obviously that's the results of eating better.
Speaker 3:But what I started to notice because I used to have such a stressful job I would constantly think about work all the time, but I could never let it go. But when I was in the kitchen and I'd switch on my little kitchen radio, put the music on and start to just I, you know, I used to always follow recipes before because I, you know, that's how I was as a high achiever like you, didn't want to get anything wrong, right, I couldn't just cook, not like now. Now I don't ever look at a recipe book, I'm just like I make things up. But then I used to follow these recipes. But you know I'd follow the recipe, do exactly what it told me to do. What would happen was that for that half an hour or hour of cooking, I wasn't thinking about work. I was being present. I was thinking about what I was actually doing on, you know, in the kitchen. So that would regulate my nervous system, because I wasn't constantly in stressful mode and I didn't find cooking stressful at all because I was following recipes that were simple Italian recipes. I also knew that the Italian recipes are just simple, like that's the beauty of Italian food, they're not very complicated. So that was one the third thing that I know. So I so yeah. So I improved my well-being through fresh food, which impacted my mental health, my physical health. Cooking helped me to regulate my nervous system, which also helps to improve your mental health.
Speaker 3:Thirdly, I got such a boost of confidence from being able to cook these dishes and them to taste so good. I used to be like. It was like a self-confidence in me that I didn't. I don't think I had any self-confidence in myself before I started. It was wild, like my job in corporate was a way of validating myself. Like for me to be good at my job was a way for me to say I was good, but apart from my job I didn't validate myself. I had no self-worth. And it's really when I think about now it's bad, but I'm proud of how far I've come, but producing food that was so delicious started to really and for me to start saying to myself do you know what? I'm taking better care of myself, I'm, you know, I'm feeling good about myself. That was all very empowering and confidence boosting.
Speaker 3:But it was when I started I it's when I had the confidence to invite a friend over for dinner and be like, rather than going to the pub, do you want to come to my house and I have dinner and have dinner with me, I'll cook you dinner and then to share. So I always feel like that's where there's a lot of love can happen in a meal, right, because a I'm loving, I'm giving out love by cooking someone a meal. I'm showing them how much I care about them by cooking them something. But then that friend is sharing that moment with you and then they're giving you that lovely feedback of like, oh my God, your food is amazing and that's very confident boosting. But then it's all the connections you make with that person and I remember thinking like this isn't just over time, this isn't just about the food.
Speaker 3:Like people would then want to come round to my house for dinner because it ended up always being like a really fun evening. You know, we would talk, we would share things. Sometimes it would just be really fun. Sometimes there would be days when someone had to share something that really got off their chest. They just needed a friend. And so it was all these special moments and that, for me, made me realize there was more to life than just climbing the corporate ladder. There was all this beauty around me and the funny thing was that was all super related to my Italian culture and all of those three things massively boosted my mental health, like healthy eating, deregulate my nervous system and creating connections over food all improved my mental health. Yes, healthy eating, deregulate my nervous system and creating connections over food all improves my mental health. So it's not just even healthy eating.
Speaker 2:It's, it's all, it's everything around food and cooking that can really help with that and you know what I, what I found interesting, um, in what you just said and I made a note of it is how so many of us, or um, seek validation through our nine to five, you know, or self-worth is just so tied into that stuff. But like when you find, I think as well, I know, when we find true peace and true and true happiness and the things that we find most purposeful, it's almost like we are like second guessing. It Is this me, am I any good? You know how do we move forward? And I have this question like when you first started the blog, there were no, there were not as many advocates right For the culinary arts, cake therapy, culinary therapy, the food, the purpose and the impact that food or culinary therapy can have. Tell me a little bit more how you feel the field has grown and the knowledge around culinary arts therapy or cake therapy, because you know that's my lane.
Speaker 3:I mean it's grown massively, it's huge. I mean, I feel like now, I think when I started blogging, like I said, I was just blogging about Italian food and I think what I was doing I was bringing, I was romanticizing, I was I was helping people to be able to romanticize their love for Italian cooking into their own home. That's what I was essentially doing when I was showing all these Italian recipes. But I think now food and I think there I think there were lots of other people there was like a Spanish version of me or an Indian version of me, or a Chinese version. It was all different. So I think there was lots of people that were doing that.
Speaker 3:I feel like now, with the culinary arts, I mean I think the things that what we do, like talking about how cooking or baking can really improve your mental health, like how you know cooking or baking, can really improve your mental health. I I know there's like a. There's a small, a beautiful small group of people that are like advocating that. I still don't feel like it has the. I don't still feel like it has a big enough platform. Yet I think people, I feel like still people associate cooking as a chore or they associate cooking as something that they just have to do. Yeah, because, but the reason why is because I think big corporate companies have you know, that's, that's that's the message they're sharing to people to get them to buy into the more processed stuff or the ready-made foods and all those things. But how do I feel about how? I just remember what your original question was, sorry the how the growth of you know in terms of yeah of love, of culinary therapy or just culinary.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean it's. I think it's slowly getting there. Only because I also think things like the wellness world has really opened up in the last few years. I mean, when I think about my journey, about when I used to not take care of myself, I don't blame myself. I used to blame myself. I don't blame myself anymore. The reason why I don't blame myself is because back in the day, no one used to talk about wellness or self-care or anything like that, and we, I think, since the pandemic we really have, I think there's a whole new world that's opened up. So I feel, like from where it was to when I started blogging, like now it's definitely grown. It's much more out there in the space.
Speaker 3:But is it got a big enough platform? I don't think it's got a big enough platform yet, but I think that's because, like I said, I think there are bigger powers, there are big powers. Should I think there are bigger powers? There are big powers? Should I say not bigger powers? There are big powers out there that are basically sending out this subliminal message to lots of people to let them know that they don't need to worry about cooking because they have the solution and actually I feel like it's a real.
Speaker 3:It's dangerous because actually the cooking is the one thing that everyone around the world can actually connect with and it's the one thing that you can actually do every day. And I say to people, what about if you cook and you find it a chore, and if you want to cook but you want it to be self-care, it doesn't mean that you're spending any more time in the kitchen than when you're cooking as a chore. It's this, you have to change this. When you're cooking as a chore, it's this, you have to change this. And you have to cook with this. You have to change the mindset and you have to cook with your heart. That means that if you spend those 20 minutes, rather than begrudging it or the negative self-talk or moaning, but actually go oh, these are now my 20 minutes just to relax then I think it could really really help people. But, like I say, like there's so much more work to be done. There's a lot of work to be done.
Speaker 2:I know you mentioned that cooking, simplifying dishes per se, right, um, or cooking is really eliminating how the world connects with each other? Talk to me a little bit more about your thoughts around food and the ways it connects with others to share love and their culture.
Speaker 3:I mean, I think food is one of the most powerful things we have on earth. The way that you know food is created in terms of, like, fresh food, like the way you know love goes into food. The moment seeds are put into the ground, you know there's someone taking care of that area, you know tending to it to make sure that the food you know grows. But food is the one thing that we can relate, we can connect to anyone. Like you could sit around a table and you could all not speak the same language, right, you could all not not be able to communicate, but you could communicate. If you're sharing a meal together that you were all loving, you would instantly be able to communicate straight away. And I think it's something that I feel like, again, is getting lost a lot in the western world because, like, sometimes people's working hours means they don't get to sit around the table off, you know, after work together. Or one of the things I always say to my clients is like, try not to eat if you're, if you live with someone, try not to eat in front of the television. Like, sit around the table, talk. Let that be the moment that you can actually, like you know, just completely decompress from your day and share your thoughts over the meal. It's not when I say eating at the table, it's not about sitting there and talking about how good your meal is. It's not. It's not about that. I mean, that is great If you're getting pleasure and enjoyment from your meal. That's like amazing. But being able to use like food and cooking as a way to connect with other people is phenomenal and that's with the people that you live with or like.
Speaker 3:If you haven't seen people for a long time invite them over for the meal, I don't know anyone who would say no. I mean, there are some people but a lot of people love it. Most people love the idea of being invited to dinner. I'm like I always say to my friends, always a bit I'm always a bit scared to cook for you. I'm like please don't ever say that, because my love language is is food. If someone can cook for food, I, I will love you more. Like I. It's literally what I'm looking for in my part of my future partner is like a man that can cook, who wants to cook for me. Because I always get men always assume, because I'm the cook, they've won the jackpot and that I'll be cooking for them.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, no, no, no, no no.
Speaker 3:It has to be a two-way street. I need someone who also appreciates and understands the love language of food. But again.
Speaker 2:You know the.
Speaker 3:Italian culture is like like yesterday. Just for example, I'm on the on the beach yeah.
Speaker 3:I had lunch by myself at this lovely restaurant. But I went down after lunch and I was surrounded by these families that had obviously brought their own homemade pasta bakes and they were all sitting around you know their sun loungers and just sitting there eating and talking and I was just like, even then I was a bit like god, it's just you know the effort that had gone in to like make that food to take to the beach for then everyone to enjoy. So it was like they're still having that sitting around the table moment, but they're all sat in their swimsuits on sun lounges. But it was still, like you know, amazing, like I feel, like we forget, like without food we cannot survive and I don't think we can't survive without food.
Speaker 3:We physically can't like I think we can. I think, let's say, you can survive without water for three days and then you're gone. I think food, I think it's like I can't remember how many weeks it is, but I think it's like one or two weeks and then. So I'm like, if this, if this, if it's a thing, food is a thing where you literally cannot survive without it, why are we not celebrating it more? Why are we not trying to cook more? Why aren't we trying to enjoy our food more?
Speaker 3:If it's the thing that keeps us alive and it can be the thing that makes us happy and it can boost our confidence and it can give us energy, why aren't we giving it the time or energy that it deserves? Because I feel like we still don't understand. I feel like the western world is you know, it's come, come very good like the world is just turning very quickly, at a very fast pace. From one minute to the other, the world has completely changed. But it's the one thing that I think we should be celebrating every single day, not not at Christmas, not at Easter, not on your birthday.
Speaker 2:Or Thanksgiving.
Speaker 3:I'm not even saying cooking every day, but I just think just give it that little bit of respect of what food actually does for you and I think you can get a lot back from it if you love it and respect it enough.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you speak. When you talk about food, it's filled with so much passion and joy and highlighting that you've contributed so much, you know, in the world, to the world of food and how people see food and think about food right now, what is next for you? Where do you see the self-love coach? The Italian cookery, the tiny Italian. Where do you see yourself in the next coach? The Italian cookery, the tiny Italian. Where do you see yourself in the next two years? What is there for you?
Speaker 3:I think for me, my biggest, I think my biggest up level, my biggest change is like for a long time I was trying to convince people to fall in love with cooking, right, but what I've realized? That to get people to embrace the power and love of food, it's not the cooking they have to fall in love with, they have to fall in love with themselves. And so for me, it's about I'm really excited about helping people break free from self-neglect, because I know exactly how that feels, because I was she. I'm excited about breaking free from self-neglect, helping people unlock their own self-love journey and showing people how they can really nourish themselves and love themselves and start that journey in the kitchen. But it doesn't just stop in the kitchen, it then takes you to. I want people to live their best life, and so for me to do that I mean I have a. I have an amazing membership that I'm really passionately trying to grow at the moment. It's called the self-love cooking club and it's a space for women who know that they need to start their own self-love journey, but they just don't know where to go, or maybe they don't have the support from home or no one. You know they. They feel that need of motivation. It's a beautiful space for women. It's a beautiful community where every woman in there who has decided to join is because they've said I'm worth the time to make, I'm worth to make the time for. And within that community I teach them how to cook. You know these beautiful, easy, delicious, healthy meals, mediterranean. So they get in the the goodness. But those cooking sessions are fun. We play music, we chat and then I give them a bit of group. I give them a bit of group coaching on on um, their mindsets, their self-love, their self-care. So that's kind of what I've already have.
Speaker 3:But the next step for me is that I'm I want to start working with women one-to-one, because I've noticed the changes that have been happening for the women inside my community. But I think it would be even more powerful if I was able to really work, because I know that not everyone again, some people are introverts, some people are extroverts, some people joining a community, even though I love the idea of the community and the community, people in the community love the community, but I also feel like I'm cutting off people that probably just would love some one-to-one and someone in where they, because I feel like we do chat and some people do open up, but they know it's a safe space. But maybe, working with women that want to talk about you, really want to open up about where their lack of self-love comes from and, like, help them. But you know, I want to show that they can start loving themselves through cooking. So, treating them, how to be self-compassionate through cooking, how to learn to be okay, to not be perfect, to learn to show gratitude, but show that all through the kitchen. So that's what my one-to-one, that's my next thing. My one-to-one, that's my next thing. My one-to-one program is my next big thing. Um, and I'm going to be offering the idea is that I'll be offering women to work for me online, but if people wanted to actually experience it in Italy, they could come and have the actual, you know, have that program, but obviously it'll be like, rather than 12 weeks, we can do it, cram it into like a nice long weekend and, you know, help them that way, um, so that's my next big thing. And then I do really want to write a book about my methodology, because my, I think my methodology is really unique, because I don't think anyone.
Speaker 3:I think when people think about healthy eating and wellness and taking care of yourself. There's everyone, just always. I, when I close my eyes, I just see these really skinny blonde girls eating quinoa and avocados, right, like that's. That's what. That's what I see. I actually want to show. I want to show women that you can feel healthy and look and be anything. You don't have to be a certain size or a certain color or anything. I want everyone to know that you can just be beautiful as you are, just feed yourself, goodness, and you will start to feel better. It's not about your shape or whether you're starving yourself or you're eating quinoa. No, it's like focus the first. I've got a thing about quinoa the only thing I don't enjoy, right, I just do not enjoy quinoa. I probably, if someone listens to this podcast, I get hated from the quinoa. I'm just.
Speaker 3:I think we need to represent healthy women in a whole. We need to represent healthy women. We need to arrange what that vision has been for a long time and tell women that it's not about what you look like, it's about this when you finally love yourself, when you truly understand and the queen that you are, you are so frigging powerful. So forget about trying to get into that bikini that you've been trying for the last three years. No, it doesn't matter. If you feel good, that's all that matters. And I feel like starting to eat well regulate your, regulate your nervous system, boost your self-confidence in the kitchen is the perfect way, perfect place to start your self-love journey, especially if you're someone who neglects your everyday and I know for a fact busy people. I know one of their main problems is that they really struggle with eating well regularly because they don't have time. But it's the one place you can really really start your own self-love and self-care journeys in the kitchen man we leave it there.
Speaker 2:I ain't got nothing else to you, lady. I ain't got nothing else to you. We're gonna leave it at quinoa and avocado today I love avocados, though I love avocado.
Speaker 3:Just talking about quinoa, I hate quinoa does not love quinoa hola.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for joining us and I hope that really our listeners will feel the passion you have for your food and they learn you know how to become entrepreneurs in their own right from hearing you speak and talking about having a business model, having a purpose, having passion and putting in the work. I hope that this conversation has been. I hope that you enjoyed our conversation today.
Speaker 3:I loved it.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me, yeah, so before we hop off, though, I want you to share with our listeners where they can find you.
Speaker 3:Okay, of course. Yeah. So first, the easy place to find me if you're on Instagram is just go and follow me at the tiny Italian. You'll find me there. There's a lot of self-love talks and recipes now and again, but that's where you I feel like. That's the place where you can really connect with me and really see what it is that I'm talking about when it comes to self-love and kickstarting that journey in your own kitchen. You can.
Speaker 3:I also have a website, again just using the same handle the tiny Italiancom. I feel those are my two main areas, and if you go to my website, you can also get a free download for my 12 essential self-care cooking ingredients. So these are things that I always have in my cupboard to make sure that, even when I have no time or when I don't have time or energy because, anyway, I feel like they're all just an illusion half the time when I don't have time or energy because, anyway, I feel like they're all just an illusion half the time when you don't have time and energy if you've got these 12 ingredients in your cupboard, then you basically have everything that you need to help you create something delicious and healthy and simple.
Speaker 2:All right. Thank you so much for joining us. I want to encourage all our listeners and subscribers to continue to support the Cake Therapy Foundation. Paola and I obviously have women's interests at heart. We want to teach them to cook, we want to teach them to bake through their stresses and traumas and trying new things. I'm grateful for you, I'm grateful for the platform, and until next time, though, I want you all to believe in your own sauce. That's what Paola said. She likes making sauces and soups, and what. Thank you, oh thank you Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 3:I wasn't sure where you were going with that. I'm so sorry, but thank you for having me. It was amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, all right guys, thank you. Today's mindful moment is that in the kitchen we can turn raw ingredients into something beautiful. Let that inspire you in all that you create today.
Speaker 1:Thank you for tuning in to the Cake Therapy Podcast. Your support means the world to us. Let us know what you thought about today's episode in the comment section. Remember to subscribe wherever you get your podcast and if you found the conversation helpful, please share it with a friend. Also, follow Sugar Spoon Desserts on all social media platforms. We invite you to support Cake Therapy and the work we do with our foundation by clicking on the Buy Me a Coffee link in the description or by visiting the Cake Therap therapy website and making a donation. All your support will go towards the cake therapy foundation and the work we are doing to help women and girls. Thanks again for tuning in and we'll catch you on the next episode.