Amalia Brusati di Settala was a Milan-based fashion buyer for many years, but she started to feel burned out and decided to switch careers. Brusati di Settala grew up in Italy watching her grandmothers, Angelina and Liliana, cook the family’s favorite regional dishes, so she enrolled in an intensive professional cooking program at the Food Genius Academy.

Six years ago, she met her husband, Jace Perkerson, who was attending a conference in Milan, and after years of going back and forth Brusati di Settala emigrated to the US. “It was a very romantic long-distance story; he couldn’t move to Italy because of his job, so I decided to move to Knoxville,” she said. The couple were married in March 2020 and recently bought their first home together in South Knoxville.