Engineering Taste in Careers- “Procrastibaker”

Over a glass of fruity white wine and a mouth-watering starter in ‘The French Paradox’ in Dublin,  the waitress told me the story of her career  – so far. This 21-year-old effervescent waitress bowled me over with her zest for life.

Aoife’s career path got off to a wobbly start as she got her third choice in CAO, Engineering in Trinity. Her first and second choices were Psychology. After a few months of feeling no desire for Engineering she dropped out of college. She had to examine her heart’s desire. Upon examination, Aoife realised that she had fallen deliriously in love. She was consumed by her love morning, noon and night. The sight, sense and taste of her love filled her up. Aoife had fallen in love with…..food. She dropped out of Trinity and headed off to Florence to study in a Cordon Bleu cookery school and study Italian.

Aoife bubbled over like champagne as she spoke about her passion for food. She recounted the smell of the basil and tomatoes that wafted through the air of the Italian kitchen. Her passion carried her through the language barrier to make pasta, pizza, sushi and so on. Her time in Florence was the beginning of an intense love affair.

Upon her return to Ireland, this love affair revealed itself in baking. Aoife took a leap and created her own brand ‘Sweet Inspirations’.  Everyone thought she was crazy to give up Trinity and Engineering for the seduction of food.

While starting a degree in UCD in Psychology and Italian, she went on to create a blog of her featured cookery on www.eatwelltravelfar.weebly.com . She markets herself on Facebook :https://www.facebook.com/eatwelltravelfarloveoften

You can see how she embraced the social media world of food on

Instagram: http://instagram.com/eatwelltravelfarloveoften Twitter: @EAT_WELL_TRAVEL

And also on Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/eattravel/

Apparently, her laptop contains 100,000 images of food, such is her addiction!

Aoife’s favourite quote was by Julia Child “people who love to eat are always the best people”. As a Foodie, I really appreciated this quote.  Aoife moved on to say that her current interest is in healthy eating and in the Paleo diet. Her recent creation of chocolate brownies was featured on the Facebook account of the Paleo recipe world, which, has 63,000 viewers. These brownies have elevated her status in the food blogger kingdom and prompted a great reaction. This positive feedback has given her great joy.

In the future, Aoife hopes to create her own brand and products based on the Paleo principle of no wheat, sugar or dairy. For now, she has to deal with the challenges of applying herself to her daily studies in Italian and Psychology in UCD. Avoidance of studies and getting distracted by food has earned her the nickname, “The Procastibaker”. If Aoife is not baking she in on Facebook, Food blogs, Instragram and Pinterest. Her waking and sleeping thoughts still centre on engineering great taste!

We ended this conversation about the consuming nature of the love of her life by brainstorming ways that she could marry Psychology, Italian and Food together into a meaningful career. Joining the dots going forward between her degree and her future is the key to unlocking her motivation to get out of the kitchen and into the lecture halls!