MILAN, ITALY — Bountiful native Brooke Eliason was a few months pregnant when she decided to pick up her young family and move to grow her business.
“We packed up our big 14 duffel bags of things and our three kids under age seven and moved here to Milano,” she said.
Eliason runs the well-known food-touring company “Female Foodie” and posts about everything Italy on her popular Instagram page.
She decided her business would be more successful if she lived closer to her subject matter, Italian food.
“I think people can sense that and feel that that like I’m actually obsessed with getting the focaccia recipe just right? Or I really want to take people to like the very best restaurants in Rome,” she said.
We visited Eliason while in Milan for the Olympics.
She has had to evolve to fit her European experience, starting with her apartment.
Though her fourth-floor apartment has four bedrooms, it has nowhere near the space she’s used to.
For example, her oven barely accommodates a cookie sheet, which is a problem for someone who makes their living from cooking.
And her apartment has a rare luxury in Milan, a clothes dryer. To most mothers of four kids, a dryer is a necessity.
Brooke shows the iconic view from her apartment window (Deanie Wimmer)
“The apartment we’re living in now is definitely a transition from our 2,500 square foot home,” she joked.
Kitchen appliances aren’t the only difference. Eliason has had to learn to slow down her pace, not eat meals on the go, and to live without a car.
They take the tiny elevator from their apartment to the subway to get to most places.
But she said those are minor tradeoffs.
“It’s such a privilege to have this slice in our lives to be able to live in a vibrant city and ride the subway and eat really good food every day,” she said.
As you might expect, the thing she misses most is the rest of her family still in Utah.
“It’s really made me appreciate how, not only nice it is to be closer to family, but how easy it is,” she said.
And the little thing she misses most is the little creature comforts from home.
“It’s so nice… go to the Maverick or the 7-Eleven and get a big icy cup of soda where here it’s just so different, right? They don’t have ice as much.
Now, it’s not soda but baby formula on her mind, as she’s growing her family and her business.
Baby Leo arrived a few weeks ago and she’s trying to get him on a sleeping schedule.
Her other children are enjoying the new change of attending school and learning Italian.
“They haven’t complained once,” she said.
She fondly remembers the experiences of attending Olympic events in 2002.
Now that she lives in another Olympic city, she has come full circle with her children.
“I really want them to have memories of how we lived in Milan. We lived in Milan. We were there for the Olympics. Yeah, we went to these places and saw these things,” she said.
Before we left, she demonstrated that the tiny oven in her apartment can still bake delicious cookies from the Female Foodie.
