During this time, she gave a talk on cookery to raise money to buy "a small cabinet organ" for the local Sunday school.
As she later recollected, "The interest seemed to warrant my undertaking the work, and I decided to open a school in the fall, 1877, which I did on Tremont Street.
Its first teacher was Joanna Sweeney who taught the classes in basic cookery; Maria Parloa was engaged to give regular lectures on more sophisticated topics.
In 1887, "having made a considerable fortune,"[10] she stopped teaching in New York and moved back to Boston, where she "purchased a comfortable home in Roxbury.
"[10] During the same year, her next cookbook, Miss Parloa's Kitchen Companion: A Guide for All Who Would Be Good Housekeepers, was published in Boston.
One Hundred Ways to Use Leibig Company's Extract of Beef: A Guide for American Housewives appeared in 1893.
The United States Census for 1900 shows that her household included a "servant" of Irish birth named Sarah Hourigan.
[3] She died on August 21, 1909, following surgery in Bethel, Connecticut, and her remains where interred at the Forest Hills Cemetery.