Meet Katie Brooks

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Katie Brooks a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Katie, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.
I have always been in love with pasta, and growing up in an Italian family there was lots of it! Every Thursday was pasta night in my family, and my absolute favorite times of year were Easter and Christmas, which had nothing to do with presents and everything to do with pasta. Every Easter my family gets together to make hundreds of homemade ravioli & every Christmas we celebrate the Feast of the Seven Fishes which we serve over pasta.

My creativity lies in my hands and I’ve always enjoyed making things with them, whether it’s my high school prom dress or ravioli from scratch, making something out of nothing has always been what I’m most passionate about. Because of this, I went to college in New York to study Fashion Design, but the experience that really shaped who I am today wasn’t my history of fashion class- it was studying abroad in Florence, Italy. Throughout high school & college I studied Italian, so when I signed up for my Italian Language class for my semester abroad, I decided to sign up for an Italian Cooking class, and it was this class where I absolutely fell in love with cooking.

After graduating, I decided to move across the country to California and brought my family’s Easter Ravioli tradition with me. When I met my husband, I made homemade pasta for him for a birthday and from that point on, we started making fresh pasta regularly & later decided to start an Instagram to share photos of our pasta creations.

In 2020, I was temporarily laid off due to the pandemic, resulting in me starting a fresh pasta delivery service in San Diego. After another year of the corporate life, I decided to take a huge leap and quit my high paying job to start working for myself and making pasta full time. But even then I didn’t exactly know if I could maintain the manual labor that comes with making fresh pasta, especially in bulk.

I started teaching pasta classes, which came pretty naturally since it was something fun I’d done in the past for a team building event with my coworkers, so I slowly transitioned from selling homemade pasta to teaching homemade pasta.

Then it all happened when I started sharing pasta tutorials & tips for beginners on my social media – turns out a lot of people don’t realize that they can make fresh pasta at home with little to no tools required! All they need is someone to give them the motivation (and recipe) to do it – and that’s where I come in 🙂

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

My brand is built on giving people inspiration & motivation to make pasta from scratch and teaching them that it doesn’t actually require fancy, expensive tools, culinary experience or special machinery. All it requires is a rolling pin and knife- and a little elbow grease!

In addition to the above I also want to teach homemade pasta making because it really is that much better – and not just the taste of homemade pasta. When you make homemade pasta you’re using better ingredients and enjoying it fresh which is actually so much better for you!

And for anyone who wants a little extra one on one help from me with the pasta making process, I’ve just launched my 40 minute pasta making course where I cover the basics of making delicious egg pasta – from the egg crack, through the kneading & rolling process all the way to the final cut – I’ll help you every step of the way! I’ll be launching a new pasta making course every few weeks including eggless pasta, gluten free pasta, gnocchi & more advanced pasta making including shaped & filled pasta!

Each class will also cover all my helpful tips including how to knead the perfect dough ball, dough hydration, how to roll your dough out thin, my best storage & cooking tips and much more 💛

You can find my online courses, full recipes, newsletter, upcoming workshops & pasta merch on my website, stan.store/buonapastaclub 🙂

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
The most important skills & qualities that I’ve developed since teaching pasta for beginners would be of course be pasta making – I grew up making homemade pasta with family but in the last several years I really dove into testing & researching everything there is to know about pasta making, dough consistency & hydration and all different types of pasta including shapes but also other ways to make it, without gluten, without eggs, etc.

Secondly, I think another important quality that I possess is the ability to teach – I think I can say I get that quality from my mom who was a teacher for 20+ years. I started hosting team building pasta classes for coworkers well before I decided to go all in with my pasta business, so it was something that came naturally! And even before that, when I brought our Easter ravioli tradition to San Diego, I would host family and friends who I would have to show the ravioli making process to, so that really helped get me ready for my future pasta biz!

I think my 3rd and equally important quality is patience – this is definitely something you need for both pasta making & teaching! You need to be able to take it slow with both pasta making as it can be very fragile, and teaching, since most of my “students” have no prior knowledge on making pasta from scratch.

Tell us what your ideal client would be like?
Calling all pasta lovers 🙂

My ideal client is someone who loves food, pasta specifically but may be intimidated by the kitchen and the thought of making it from scratch! They love learning new things and are not scared to try something new 🙂

Contact Info:

Suggest a Story: BoldJourney is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
Leadership Development
Empathy Unlocked: Understanding how to Develop Emotional Intelligence

“Empathy is the starting point for creating a community and taking action. It’s the impetus

Productivity
Where do you get your work ethic from?

We’ve all heard the phrase “work hard, play hard,” but where does our work ethic

Productivity
Boosting Productivity Through Self-Care

When you have a never-ending to-do list it can feel irresponsible to engage in self-care,