STAFF NEWS

Gaiba combines baking and art in the Kendall College kitchen.

For Francesca Gaiba, New Pursuits Make the Proverbial Icing on the Cake

Francesca Gaiba—pastry chef, volunteer, ex-dancer, artist—is never bored. She insists upon keeping her life simple so that she has time to pursue the things she loves doing.

"The keyword for me is beauty," she says.

Gaiba currently works as associate director in the LAS Office of Social Science Research. "My job here is to help faculty members get grants for their research," she says. Gaiba isn’t responsible for writing grants for faculty members, though. She is responsible for helping those with research goals in mind find funding that will meet their needs.

She didn’t always know that this was the job she was searching for. Instead, she lived most of her life pursuing things that were both interesting and artistic. She grew up in Bologna, Italy, where she got her undergraduate degree at a school for interpreters and translators. Her senior thesis was on the Nuremberg trials. These trials were the first such proceedings to be simultaneously translated into several languages, making them an appropriate topic of study for Gaiba who is fluent in Italian, French, German, and English.

During this time she studied abroad in Germany and in the U.S. at the University of California, Berkeley, where she met her husband. "We were both smokers," she laughs, citing how sometimes bad habits can bring people together.

In the U.S., Gaiba started looking into opportunities for graduate school. She earned a three-year fellowship to Syracuse University, which she used to fund a master’s in international relations and the beginnings of a PhD. She ran out of money before she could finish, though, and decided to get a full time job in Chicago before she continued.

That was in 1999. Five years later, late one night while she was in pastry school at Kendall College, she decided that she needed to finish her PhD. "I set the goal that before I turned 36, which would be in 2008, I was going to get my PhD, and I did it."

Her dissertation topic was friendships between gay men and straight women—the ‘Will and Grace’ phenomenon. "I wanted to pick a topic that I would be fascinated by and that also would be manageable for me. Plus there’s a lot of research that needs to be done on LGBT issues."

While finishing her dissertation, Gaiba also graduated from Kendall College’s pastry school with a specialty in wedding cakes. She puts her pastry skills to good use by throwing parties and baking cakes for friends, and by volunteering two weekends a month at a senior center.

Volunteering, Gaiba says, is also a pursuit of beauty. "Beauty is not static," she says. "Volunteering is a form of beauty, you know, the love you get from people and the love you give through the food."

Two Saturdays a month Gaiba cooks and serves a meal for 15 seniors. She says that the importance of this is less about serving fantastic, multi-course meals and more "about showing up every two weeks for four years."

Francesca Gaiba shares her recipe for Apple-Cranberry Pie to print out and try
at home.

She learned this lesson the hard way the first time she volunteered. She tried to serve a traditional Italian three-course meal to the seniors, who were surprised and bothered at the small serving of pasta they got in the first course. They were worried they would not get enough to eat. Gaiba had to repeatedly assure them that two more courses would follow. Since then she has served everything in one course, breaking the rules of Italian cuisine but making the seniors happy. "It's not about me, or about what I want to do, it's about what they need and want in terms of food and nourishment," she says.

"The volunteering at the senior home is one of the most beautiful things in my life."

Gaiba is grateful for the many opportunities she’s had in her life, and always sees one door opening when another closes. During the five-year break in her dissertation research, she spent a great deal of time dancing, specializing in salsa and the Argentine tango. She developed hip problems, however, and found dancing too difficult to pursue. Though she mourns the loss of a beloved art form, she says, "Not being able to dance freed up three days a week which allowed me to do a dissertation. I always see change as an opportunity."