Carolina Gelen began her cooking career at an early age. Initially, her curiosity about food was piqued while watching her mother create homemade meals every day. As her mother allowed her to play and experiment in the kitchen with various ingredients, Carolina’s curiosity would turn into a life-long love. This passion would take her on a path she could never have imagined as a five-year-old cooking side-by-side with her mother.
“There’s cooking, and then there’s cooking with passion, creativity, and love. The energy you put into a recipe is just as important as the ingredients you use.”
– Little Rae’s Bakery
Carolina grew up in Transylvania, Romania, with her Hungarian and Romanian parents. She shares, “I didn’t have much growing up in a one-bedroom apartment, and I’d even say we were pretty poor, but my mom somehow managed to nurture this passion I had for cooking.”
While most kids her age were enjoying their favorite cartoons, Carolina looked forward to watching cooking programs. Her favorite pastime of staring at the screen as world-renowned chefs sliced, diced, sautéed, prepped, and plated their culinary creations would have another unforeseen benefit. “Many of these TV shows were in English, so I ended up learning English by watching Food Network, Chopped, Jamie Oliver, and other shows like that,” Carolina chuckles as she continues, “Which came in handy a little bit later in life.”
In Transylvania, cooking is not a career path that is encouraged. So, when it came time for Carolina to attend college, she chose to earn a degree in computer science. She explains, “It was something I knew I could finish, and it would provide a stable income to support myself after college. But, within the first year, it was very clear that I didn’t like what I’d picked to study.” In Romania, if you decide to change your major you have to start all over again. College credits don’t transfer like they do here in the U.S., so, she persevered and pushed through. After a day of tedious study, Carolina looked forward to coming home and cooking. “I started to post my recipes and food on Instagram as a way of doing something I actually enjoyed while going through college.” People began to take notice of her infectious smile and fun videos, and so did a couple of food media companies. Carolina shares, “The New York Times reached out to me because they were seeing my videos online. At first, I thought it was a scam.” She laughs and says “I was like, I’m in Transylvania. How did they even reach me? What do you mean The New York Times just emailed me?” But it wasn’t a scam. It was a dream come true. The New York Times sent Carolina recipes that she would film herself making, and then she’d send the videos back for them to post on their social media platform, NYC Cooking. Six months later, Food52 reached out and asked if Carolina would join them as a recipe resident, creating recipes for them to post online, and, of course, she said yes.
“Cooking is like painting or writing a song. Just as there are only so many notes or colors, there are only so many flavors—it’s how you combine them that sets you apart.”
– Wolfgang Puck
Carolina began to set herself apart and expand her own brand as well, producing videos for her growing blog and Instagram followers. She shares, “One of the most important things to me is to make cooking as approachable as possible for everyone. I’m constantly inspired by seasonal ingredients and whatever I can find at local farms or farmers markets. I like to have fun with the ingredients and create a witty aspect to each recipe. A lot of my audience will tell me that they are familiar with certain recipes I make, but they would never have thought to put things together the way I do, so it feels approachable but also innovative and new.” Carolina continues, “A huge rule in our house was that you weren’t allowed to waste food. We would make the most out of what we had. So, I try to show people how to make recipes without wasting certain ingredients or how to make the most out of the ingredients that they have.”
Sometimes, using whatever is in your cupboards instead of what a recipe calls for can lead to delicious discoveries. For instance, while Carolina was craving some Penne alla Vodka, she decided to use butter beans in the sauce instead of pasta. She paired it with some crunchy butter toast, and voilà — an unexpected new dish, and fan favorite, was created.
Don’t worry if you feel like the height of your gastronomical prowess lies in heating the contents of a store-bought can of Ravioli, garnished with a sprig of that leafy stuff at the end of celery. Carolina’s got you covered. “If you’ve never cooked for a day in your life, picking up cooking as a hobby or even for the sake of feeding yourself can be very intimidating, especially if you don’t know anything about it. I think that a lot of recipes are written for people who already know how to cook. So, my biggest focus with my recipes is to make sure that I describe things correctly. I give a lot of visual cues so you can understand every ingredient and every instruction and come up with a successful dish in the end by following the recipe.” Carolina also understands that sometimes, the last thing people want to do when they come home from work is cook. She says, “I always try to make things as streamlined as possible; I use the least amount of dishes, and, if I can, I cut a step for the sake of you getting dinner on the table faster. If there’s a bowl being used, it’s because it had to be.”
As Carolina’s culinary methods grew in popularity, so did her opportunities. She explains, “I remember having this opportunity to work with an oil company. They sent some oil to me, and the Transylvanian Border Control sent the oil back. I was never able to even accept it and try it. It was small things like that, that made me think, okay, if I want to pursue my love of cooking online full time, I need to move to the U.S., so that is how I immigrated back to Utah.”
Wait, what? Carolina’s been here before? Yep! In 2018 and 2019, she spent her summers in Park City working as a J-1. “I didn’t know much about Utah before coming here, but it was an opportunity that I decided to take. I worked in Park City at a few restaurants and bakeries. I used to work two jobs a day, fourteen to sixteen-hour days, and I worked anything from being in the kitchen to scraping floors and cleaning people’s homes to working in a bakery and opening it up at 4:00 in the morning, and that’s how I was introduced to Utah.”
“Real cooking is more about following your heart than following recipes.”
– Unknown
Once back in the U.S., Carolina knew exactly where she wanted to plant her roots and shared that, “After seeing the Heber Valley, I was immediately drawn to its beautiful mountains and majestic scenery. I knew I wanted to live here. The valley is like the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears: not too small, not too big, just the right size. The people are friendly and neighborly, not too distant and not too noisy. It’s a postcard town, with Midway, Mount Timpanogos, and Deer Creek Reservoir sometimes reminding me of Switzerland. I love to drive around the valley, getting lost in the back roads with large farm fields full of beautiful horses and cattle. One of my favorite memories was seeing a bald eagle for the first time near Interlaken. It was just perched on the side of the road on a telephone pole surveying the valley below. So magical!”
Carolina continues to create her unique kind of magic in the kitchen and online. This year, she became a New York Times contributor, which means that in addition to producing content and videos for NYC Cooking, she will also develop recipes for them. And, who knows, maybe she’ll even be a New York Times bestseller with her cookbook, Pass the Plate, which contains “100 Delicious, Highly Shareable, Everyday Recipes,” coming to a kitchen near you on September 24th. The cover of her book showcases Carolina’s exuberance and joy — it’s catching — and makes one want to get out there and cook. In case you’re wondering — yes, she included her Beans alla Vodka! Her voice is full of excitement as she says, “I really wanted this cookbook to be an extension of what people already follow me for online, something that could just live on every home cook’s countertop. […] I think you can find a lot of inspiration from it and a lot of reliable recipes that you can make on a busy weeknight or when entertaining family and friends.” With simple and easy yet deliciously satisfying recipes for appetizers, breads, breakfast and brunch, desserts, dinners, drinks, main dishes, salads, snacks, soups and stews, and vegan and vegetarian victuals, Pass the Plate is sure to become a family favorite.
Just as the eagle Carolina saw in Interlaken represents courage and freedom, Carolina acknowledges that she could never have had the courage or freedom to discover and develop her love of the culinary arts, let alone move to another country to pursue a career in it, without the influence of her mother.
Carolina believes it is important for parents of young children to let them hang out with them in the kitchen. She shares, “I know it’s a big ask — I have cooked with children before, but I think that allowing them to explore or even just watch their parents cook goes so far. I give credit to my mother as much as I can for doing that with me, even if it was just something simple like frying eggs or letting me make doughnuts with her. She would let me cut the dough into whatever shape I wanted rather than pushing me away, turning me away from helping. I think that just giving your child a little more attention and letting them be there, and answering those silly annoying questions that you might think are annoying, but for them, it teaches them a lot.” Perhaps the famous American restaurateur, author, and Emmy Award-winning television presenter, Guy Ramsay Fieri, sums it up best when he said, “Cooking with kids is not just about ingredients, recipes, and cooking. It’s about harnessing imagination, empowerment, and creativity.”
As we wrap up our interview, I ask Carolina if she ever suffers from creativity burnout. She laughs as she replies with a wholehearted, “Yes! I have certain days where I’m like, all I want right now is to throw a frozen pizza in the oven and not see food for the next three hours. But that usually comes when I have to develop a lot of recipes at a time. On a regular week, I’m more than happy and joyful to cook dinner. It’s still very exciting, and even though it’s also my job, I love it, I still have a passion for it, which is a blessing.”
Spending time preparing and eating delicious food with family and friends is indeed a blessing, a welcome respite from the chaos of our busy lives. So, gather around the table with those you love, scoop up some Beans alla Vodka, and pass the plate, please.
Reprinted with permission from Pass The Plate: 100 Delicious, Highly Shareable, Everyday Recipes: A Cookbook by Carolina Gelen. Copyright © 2024 by Gelen Media LLC.
Photographs copyright © 2024 by Nico Schinco. Published by Clarkson Potter, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
