---
title: "Paola Bacchia: The Creative Deliberation That Turns Culinary Heritage Into Enterprise"
url: "https://authoritymag.co/articles/paola-bacchia-the-creative-deliberation-that-turns-culinary-heritage-into-enterprise"
publisher: "Authority Magazine"
author: "Penny Bauder"
authorUrl: "https://authoritymag.co/authors/penny-bauder"
interviewee: "Paola Bacchia"
category: "Business"
datePublished: "2021-09-09T17:40:24.501Z"
dateModified: "2026-11-12T17:08:21.434Z"
tags: "Business"
---

# Paola Bacchia: The Creative Deliberation That Turns Culinary Heritage Into Enterprise

*Former dentist and cookbook author Paola Bacchia shares how she organically transformed her deep-rooted passion for Italian family cooking into a thriving professional career.*

> I did not set out to make food my career; it evolved gradually and organically over a period of years, with office work winding down and food-related work winding up.

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As*a part of*[our series about entrepreneurs who transformed something they did for fun](https://medium.com/authority-magazine/search?q=Avocation%20To%20Vocation)*into a full-time career, I had the pleasure of interviewing Paola Bacchia.*

*Paola was born in Australia, to migrant parents from north-east Italy. She is a dentist by profession but long ago realized that what mattered most to her was food, cooking and its link to her family and homeland. She runs a cooking school from her home in Melbourne, established the award-winning blog “*[Italy on my mind](http://italyonmymind.com.au/)*” and has written and photographed three cookbooks, most recently “Istria, recipes and stories from the hidden heart of Italy, Slovenia and Croatia” published by Smith Street Books.*

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**Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?**

I grew up in a house where food and its preparation were at the center. My father had an enviable fruit and vegetable garden and he would frequently remind us, as we were tucking into the meals prepared by my mother, that the food we were eating was growing a few hours ago. My mother’s food was that of north-east Italy, the ones she and my father had grown up eating, that reminded them of their distant homeland. We lived in a community other Italians, with adjoining back yards; and would often share meals and food preserving traditions like making tomato passata and jams with what was growing in our backyards.

My sister and I would help my mother prepare meals on Sundays, as the rest of the time we were studying. There were two things that my father insisted on: that we only speak Italian (Istrian dialect) in the family home, and that we study. My father Nello had left Italy after his college career was disrupted by World War 2 and both my parents arrived in Australia in 1950 not speaking a word of English, destined for factory work. He wanted his daughters to have a better life, through language, knowledge and study. He was very proud of the fact that we both went to university and obtained degrees. Mine was in dentistry.

**What was the catalyst from transforming your hobby or something you love into a business? Can you share the story of your “ah ha” moment with us?**

I loved working as a dentist, mainly in the government sector where I felt I was helping those in need. But something was missing. It was in the last years of my father’s life, when he got sick, that family and our northeastern Italian culture became increasingly important to me and I realized I needed to somehow capture that essence of home life. For me, this was through food.

I knew that once my father left us, life would change and my mother would no longer cook the meals she did: crispy sweet fried crostoli, stuffed artichokes cooked in wine and a hearty bean and sauerkraut soup what we called “jota”.

So I made a concerted effort to spend more time with my parents and started working part time. I was in my early 40s when I picked up an SLR camera for the first time and started taking photos of what my mother was cooking, writing down her recipes, which up to that point, were all in her head. I created a blog, “Italy on my mind” (as Italy was always on my mind) and set up an Instagram page of the same name. This was in 2011 when food blogging was not widespread and an app called Instagram had just started. I often posted photos of my mother, and of her hands, preparing and eating food, and sharing the recipes. And people loved it. I wondered how I could do this more, and do dentistry less.

**There are no shortage of good ideas out there, but people seem to struggle in taking a good idea and translating it into an actual business. How did you overcome this challenge?**

I was lucky in the sense that my “ah ha” moment was ten years ago, at the start of what has become a home-cooking revolution. Social media and other digital platforms allow us to connect in ways that were impossible before then. I connected with lots of other bloggers, food writers and cookbook authors and spent time building these connections by interacting with people online including replying to every comment and keeping the quality and content of my social media and blog consistent. After being encouraged by these online voices, I started running Italian cooking classes for six people in my home and I was one of the first to do so in Melbourne. By inviting people into my home and cooking with them, I was sharing something unique, inviting and very Italian.

It was not just about recipes, also the memories of food, the aromas, ingredients and methods that transport you back to times spent with your family and your community, preparing and then sharing food.

Whenever I make my mother Livia’s apple strudel, I am transported to the times we would make it together, her capable hands stretching the pastry so thinly that you could read through it. There is a strong and evocative memory in this process for me. I find that many who come to my classes have elderly mothers or grandmothers who never wrote their recipes down, but they have memories of the food. This is something that has appealed to many and I believe is part of my success.

**What advice would you give someone who has a hobby or pastime that they absolutely love but is reluctant to do it for a living?**

Give it time. I did not set out to make food my career; it evolved gradually and organically over a period of years, with office work winding down and food-related work winding up. I started writing my first cookbook and running cooking classes when I was working four days a week. I worked very hard and it helped having a supportive partner. Apart from anything else, he got lots of delicious food out of it!

**It’s said that the quickest way to take the fun out of doing something is to do it for a living. How do you keep from changing something you love into something you dread? How do you keep it fresh and enjoyable?**

95% of the time I love what I do but it is good to take a break as well, especially from social media, which is the part that occasionally overwhelms me. I take regular breaks from running cooking classes, and when I eat out, I tend to go to restaurants that are not Italian. This enables me to separate from it but ultimately, I don’t think it will ever stop being fun.

**What is it that you enjoy most about running your own business? What are the downsides of running your own business? Can you share what you did to overcome these drawbacks?**

Nothing gives me greater pleasure than to cook for the people I love, to work on recipes so that they are delicious and then to share that with others through words and photos. This is my work, but also what I would do if it wasn’t work. In many ways, it is a dream job. I love the flexibility and the inspiration that comes from meeting other foodies and lovers of Italy.

The downside for me is the accounting side of things. I have a very supportive accountant who I work with and who has helped me develop systems of keeping track of finances that are not as onerous. It helps having a network of people around you to help with the things that are less enjoyable.

**Can you share what was the most striking difference between your actual job and how you thought the job would be?**

I did not realize how many people I would meet that are in so many ways, just like me. In both cooking classes and when I research my cookbooks, I come across those who want to preserve the recipes and traditions that their mothers or grandmothers taught them. We get talking and we realize we have so much in common. This was especially highlighted when I was writing “Istria”; I connected with so many people with Italian-Istrian origins. Our shared language and culture made me feel like they were the extended family I had always missed.

**Has there ever been a moment when you thought to yourself “I can’t take it anymore, I’m going to get a “real” job? If so, how did you overcome it?**

I have never had a moment when I thought that. I LOVE what I do, I am just lucky that it brings in a bit of an income too.

**Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?**

It was tragic rather than funny, though I can look back at it now with some amusement. It was the first time I did a large cooking demonstration class in a shopping center. I was so nervous! I forgot to turn the deep fryer on (it contained a large amount of oil so it takes a long time heat up). I realized it just before I was about to fry a batch of chickpea fritters called “panelle”. It was terribly embarrassing and people started to walk away. A friend who was in the audience and is very funny, started telling everyone amusing anecdotes about me from my dental days. Most thought it was hilarious that I used to be a dentist (and was now a cook/author) and hung around to listen and then to taste the “panelle”. Since then, I plan every lesson by writing down the sequence of tasks, no matter how often I have run the same class and have the list with me. I never want to get caught out like that again!

**Who has inspired or continues to inspire you to be a great leader? Why?**

I am inspired by Fabrizia Lanza, a Sicilian cook and cookbook author who runs the Anna Tasca Lanza Cooking school in Central Sicily. Fabrizia’s world at Regaleali is one where the seasons guide what is on the table and foods are made from scratch using traditional techniques. I had the good fortune to run a couple of cooking workshop at the school in Sicily and got to know Fabrizia. She has an incredible passion for the farm to table approach to food and the importance of researching, documenting and sharing Sicilian food culture and traditions that might otherwise be lost. She is a true leader in the food world.

**How have you used your success to make the world a better place?**

I like to think I have inspired home cooks to connect with their culture through food; to collect, document and cherish almost forgotten recipes that were part of the story of their family or community. I connected with many Istrian-Italians in the research for my newest cookbook “Istria”. They generously shared their stories and their mother’s recipes. Capturing and documenting what has almost been lost is very precious and I would love to think this makes the world that little bit more special.

**What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)**

1. How you have to create a daily or weekly routine. It seems obvious now, but as a dentist I was so used to my appointment diary giving me structure, that when I was without that, at least initially, I went into free-fall.
2. How much I would need to self-promote on social media. I was uncomfortable putting myself out there and it takes so much time. But it is essential and most of the time I enjoy it.
3. How much time I would spend on accounts and the money side of things (especially if some of it is in another currency!). I thank my lucky stars for my accountant!
4. How much cleaning there is to do after a cooking class — sometimes participants offer to help. I used to say no but now I say yes please!
5. How important it is to give myself the space to think and plan. I am someone who has always needed to be physically doing a thing to feel I was being productive. But when you are writing creatively, the time to think, while seeming to do not much, is essential.

**What person wouldn’t want to work doing something they absolutely love. You are an incredible inspiration to a great many people. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.**

I would like to inspire people to talk to their families or their communities and capture what is not written or documented. I used to ask my mother about the old days, when she was a teenager or of when she first migrated to Australia. She would tell me stories and I would weave them into writings, in my books or in my blog.

**Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?**

“Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life” (Confucius). I love what I do and rarely does it feel like work.

**We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.**

I would love to sit down with Lidia Bastianich, cookbook author and cooking show host. She is an Italian from Istria, in a world where there are so few Italian-Istrian cooks who write cookbooks and share their recipes, with that particular influence of Venice, Austria, Hungary and the Balkans. I think we would have a lot to chat about, hopefully in our shared dialect.

**Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.**

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Source: https://authoritymag.co/articles/paola-bacchia-the-creative-deliberation-that-turns-culinary-heritage-into-enterprise (Authority Magazine, Business). Interviewee answers are first-person statements of the guest. Index of all pages: https://authoritymag.co/llms.txt