I have been contemplating starting to write about the food I cook and its significance for a while. I always make excuses as to why it is not the right time to do it. However, I am taking a leap of faith that maybe some of you out there would be interested in what I say, so I have decided to start a substack (in English!) which is not my first language so bear with me.
What I want to share with you
I am Camila, a Latina pastry chef living in the UK, and I am excited to share my experiences with you about why and how I cook. Essentially, I want to talk about how food impacts everyone's lives and loads of insights into the pastry world.
A little bit about my background
I was born in Chile (that very long and thin country at the very end of South America). In Chile, I studied Law until I decided to make a business out of selling cakes 🍰 . After a few years, I raised enough money to move to Paris to formally train as a Pastry Chef. I finished the Patisserie diploma in Le Cordon Bleu and at Le Bellouet Conseil. I worked in many patisseries and boulangeries and then moved to Cambridge because my partner was starting a PhD ❤️. I have been living in Cambridge and working as a Pastry Chef for the past six years in restaurants, hotels and as a freelancer. In 2023, I took a break from professional kitchens because I was burned out. Still, I wanted to keep cooking and learning about food and its impact on people’s lives, so I enrolled in an MSc in Food Policy to try to make sense of it all.
So, here I am now, trying to figure out what is next while cooking, baking and always rambling about food. I want to share with you my cooking, my thoughts behind it and a little bit of Latin American food history and culture.
Community and subscriptions
Latina Cooking is a weekly newsletter that will explore the world of pastry and baking with an occasional focus on Latin America. I will share recipes and insights into its history and cultural impact. From alfajores to tres leches, cacao to vanilla origins, history and political issues, but above all share how to make them and why they are made in a certain way.
I have spent nearly 15 years relentlessly exploring Latin America. From camping in the Amazon Rainforest to climbing the Andes mountains and volcanoes. Farming in Patagonia, cycling 1.240 km between Chile and Argentina. I have eaten arepas in Venezuela, drank cheesy hot chocolate in Colombia (yes, it is real), foraged fruit in a Caribean mango forest and researched cacao origins in the Ecuadorian Amazon.
I want to build a community of bakers, foodies and everyone who would want to learn more about my region through food. I will be posting every week on Sundays. Free subscribers will get 1 or 2 posts a month, some with recipes and some without. A paid subscription will get you every weekly post, including all the recipes, my ramblings about food and my Tarts ebook. (I am working on translating the Fruit Desserts and Sourdough ebooks, so when I finish that you will have a 50% discount to purchase them 😊).
Thank you so much for being here and supporting me, it means everything.