The best way to understand the Tuscan pastry art is to have a walk in Siena with an open mind, following the trail of spices, paying attention to the colours and to the ingredients of the baked goods arranged in the shop windows of bakeries, cafés, and pastry shops. The Tuscan pastry art isn’t show stopping, elegant, refined or elaborate, as you would say of the French patisserie or oven of the Southern Italian pastry art of Sicily and Naples. In this episode, we will delve into the Tuscan pastry art, discovering how seasonal it is, how strongly related to Cucina Povera, and how it shows a las ..read more

In today’s episode we’re travelling southward, towards the heel of the boot of the Italian peninsula, Salento. Today’s guest is Nina Gigante, a wellness, food, and travel journalist, and a qualified holistic nutritionist. While we were in Salento to visit Tommaso’s family, I was continuously texting Nina to have advice on where to go, shop, and, guess what, eat. Thanks to her tips we discovered my favourite brioche in Salento. In the following conversation, you’ll hear us talking about what is home for Nina, what she likes about Mediterranean cuisine, and what to see, where to eat, and what to ..read more

In this episode of Cooking with an Italian Accent, we travel to the mountains to visit my friend Vea Carpi. She is a cook, a farmer, a sourdough baker, and passionate about wool. She has a maso up in the Trentino mountains and an agritourism with her family. We are both from Tuscany, but we met there, in her farmstead, where we were greeted as part of her family. We attended one of her sourdough baking courses and learnt about her life in the mountains. In the following conversation, you’ll hear us talking about bread and wool, and what they have in common, about Alpine cuisine and local ingre ..read more

In this episode of Cooking with an Italian Accent, as promised, we have a guest that will guide us through one of the most beautiful Italian regions. This region recently filled your imagination with postcard-like maritime views, bowls of trofie al pesto and Vespa rides thanks to the latest Disney Pixar movie, Luca. Today we’ll go to Liguria. Today’s guest is Enrica Monzani, known online as A small kitchen in Genoa, food writer, soon cookbook author, and cooking class instructor in her beautiful hometown, Genoa. We talk about Liguria, Cinque Terre, and other Ligurian hidden gems, about recipe ..read more

This is the first episode of our second season, a special summer edition, a short collection of 4 episodes. In this episode of Cooking with an Italian Accent I switched role and asked our friend Valentina Dainelli, known on line as ToomuchTuscany, to be the host of this conversation: I felt it would have been much more interesting for you than listening to a soliloquy. The occasion is my 40th birthday, and we had a little online celebration. We talked about recipes and cakes, about Livia, about our job and how the pandemic affected our business. Then, we moved to talk about Tuscany and sustain ..read more

In this episode of Cooking with an Italian Accent we celebrate the spring season, its produce, with asparagus, fresh peas, fava beans and monk’s bears. We celebrate fresh herbs, one of my favourite ingredients in the kitchen, and the magic of foraged wild flowers, like robinia flowers and elderflowers. This is also the last episode of the first series of Cooking with an Italian Accent. We’ll take a break to work on our cookbook, and we’ll be back during the summer with a special edition, a short collection of 4 episodes to celebrate together the season of In the meantime, you’ll find us on ou ..read more

In this episode of Cooking with an Italian Accent I’m going back over our past 12 years of blogging, and I’ll share with you the reasons why we still believe in blogs, and why we love it so much. I’m also sharing my tips to maintain a long-term relationship with your blog: - Write about something relevant for you. - Be authentic. - Show up consistently. - It is ok to take some time off. - Be patient. At the end of this episode, I’m also introducing our new project, a weekly subscription-based newsletter. Join our newsletter here: https://julskitchen.substack.com/subscribe Find me online at w ..read more

In this episode of Cooking with an Italian Accent I’m sharing why I love risotto, and why I find it is a therapeutic recipe. When making risotto, let your senses guide you. Risotto is also a perfect example of the physical theory of everyday cooking, The Time-Work Continuum, shared by Mark Bittman in 2014. I’m also sharing the recipe for a seafood risotto, just to show you how all the elements are in a perfect symphony. The seafood risotto comes close to a seaside trip in terms of satisfaction and sheer happiness. You have the salt, fat, acid and umami in one dish, your seafood risotto. Reci ..read more

From the last episode of this podcast, a few things have changed. Summer has gone, leaving space to a bright, mild Tuscan autumn, and now it is winter, well, it’s Christmas in a few hours. On August, the 28th, we welcomed Livia, our baby girl, into this world. It has been long, exhausting, and emotional beyond words. The old life, the 2019 life, seems so far away for more than one reason. I barely remember how it was before, as so many things happened that turned our life upside down. Food, as always, has been the red thread through the multiple levels of change, the key to understand those ch ..read more

Recipes mentioned in this episode: - Effortless summer cooking: https://en.julskitchen.com/seasonal/summer/effortless-summer-cooking - French bean salad with hard boiled eggs and olives: https://en.julskitchen.com/salads/french-bean-salad - Pasta with tuna, parsley, basil and capers: https://en.julskitchen.com/first-course/pasta-first-course/pasta-with-tuna - Fried green tomato frittata: https://en.julskitchen.com/main/fried-green-tomato-frittata I’d love to hear from you: which is for you the best example of summer effortless cooking? Do you have recipes in your repertoire that can be prepa ..read more