My name is Carolina, I was born in Colombia and grew up in the US. I've had a life long passion of baking and food. I would watch more cooking shows as a child than cartoons. I wasn't brave enough to pursue my passion as a career initially so I got into marketing and eventually landed a job in Portugal. I fell in love with the city of Lisbon, but was never able to fall in love with my career, no matter how hard I tried. 4 years later I finally made the big jump of quitting my job to follow my dreams. The dreams of the little girl that would watch cooking shows all day long and fantasise about what her bakery would one day look like. I moved to Paris to train as a pastry chef at Le Cordon Bleu. I'm back in Lisbon now, and have opened up my own creative baking studio. A place where I can host workshops and events to help other women reconnect to their own creativity, and bake my heart out!
HOW DO YOU EMBRACE DIVERSITY AND/OR UNCONVENTIONALITY?
I feel that my whole being is based on doing the unconventional. My life path has been marked by always doing things differently than those around me, dreaming big and exploring new places. It's this inner unconventionality that has led me to embracing diversity, and most importantly to fall in love with it. To get high off the excitement that new cultures, backgrounds, languages, dreams, and paths bring me, and to always be seeking connection to others through the exchange of our diverse life stories.
HOW DO YOU EXPRESS YOURSELF CREATIVELY?
Through baking! This might be an obvious answer coming from a pastry chef but creating desserts truly is my favorite form of expressing myself creatively. I love every single detail involved in the creation of a dessert. Researching and getting inspiration from others chefs and bakers, testing things out in the kitchen, pairing different flavors and textures, refining the aesthetic of the dessert, decorating and packaging it. I'm truly in love with the process, it makes me come alive and feel like an artist, and as a creative this is the best feeling.
HOW DO YOU THINK YOU CAN CONTRIBUTE TO THE COMMUNITY? WHAT DO YOU FEEL YOU ARE AN EXPERT IN AND COULD GIVE ADVICE TO THE COMMUNITY ON?
I've found that reconnecting to my creativity through the art of baking has had a huge impact on my mental and physical health, as well as my overall sense of joy and purpose. My mission now is to help other women connect to their creativity as well and I would love to do this within the community. I would also love to provide everyone with tasty treats filled with love <3, baking is my love language!
SHARE A VERY VALUABLE INSIGHT YOU DERIVE FROM YOUR PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE WITH THE WORLD: