Hello baker friends!
I am so excited to have you here!
My name is Camila. I was born and raised in Sao Paulo, Brazil. I have been living in upstate New York, in the United States since December of 2011.
My husband Brian and I have been married since 2013, and we have a 3 year old son, Luke.
Luke has been cooking with me since he was 1 year old. You can see many of my recent posts include videos of us baking together, and you can also check out some more videos and pictures of Luke baking on my instagram page (@piesandtacos).
My Baking Journey
I grew up in a bakery. My grandparents had a bakery located a couple of blocks away from my house in Brazil.
My mom would bring us there everyday to visit my grandma. My sister and I played with bread dough from a huge machine that would knead pounds and pounds of bread dough everyday.
My grandma was the baker. Her clothes were always full of flour, and she was always back there, baking. She woke up before the sun everyday for 50 years to bake bread and pastries.
Baking has a special place in my heart, and it’s one of my favorite ways to express my creativity.
Pies and Tacos
When I moved to the US, I didn’t have any family around, or many friends. I married my husband Brian, and we moved to a new town, where I knew even less people, and had to start everything all over again.
I was very lonely, and my depression started to worsen. I had been living with depression since I was 14 years old, and at that point, I had hit rock bottom, I didn’t think I would ever be able to find joy in life again.
Brian would tell me: “You should find something you like doing, a hobby, and dedicate yourself to that.”
Following his advice, which is probably the best advice I’ve ever gotten in life, is what started to pull me out of the depression, and into a whole new life experience. It sounds like a very simplistic advice, but so little people actually pursue what they really love.
Usually people in life will tell you things like: “You have to find a good job. You have to study and become someone. You have to do this and that, because society expects you to.”
And Brian’s advice was so different than any of that. He was telling me to follow my heart for once, something I had denied myself almost my entire life. Always trying to live up to other’s expectations, and please those around me, very unsuccessfully, might I add. It always seemed that the more I tried to please others, the more trouble I would find myself into.
Following my husband’s advice, I started cooking and baking avidly, as it was my therapy. My obsession quickly grew so much I had no more room for it just in my small apartment kitchen, so I had to expand it to the world. I created an Instagram page to share pictures of my food, and then this blog right here.
I named it Pies and Tacos because I had the intent of making savory dishes for the blog too, which I did in the beginning. However, as you can see, this became more of a baking blog, and now I am very focused on vegan baking, as I transition to eating a vegan diet. I am currently eating mostly vegan, with a few exceptions here and there. But I am still baking a lot of macarons (with eggs), as I finish writing my eBook Mastering Macarons.
As I kept on following Brian’s advice, I discovered more things I really love doing, such as running, yoga, meditation. And I found myself in a spiritual awakening journey, where I listen to the little voice inside of me that shows me the path of least resistance, guided by the things and actions that give me energy.
The more you do what you love, the more aligned you will be with your true-self, and this way, the Universe will support you, and life will become effortless.
And more than that, I have found, during this journey, that reality is yours to create. Life is as good as you will make it be. Your thoughts and energy create the reality around you, so always remember to think positive thoughts, emanate high vibration, and spread good energy wherever you go, because it will reflect right back at you!
I will end with this quote from Bashar, which has transformed my life.
“The energy and vibrational frequency you give off, based on your beliefs, emotions, behaviors, is what determines the kind of reality and experience you have. Because physical reality does not exist, except as a reflection of what you strongly believe is true for you. It is literally like a mirror.”
On a non-cooking note, I have published my first book in 2017. It’s a children’s book called The Little Bird in the Cage (or O Passarinho na Gaiola), with copies in Portuguese and English.
Here’s a picture of when I went to read my book to the 3rd grade at a local school!
