The time I was on TV folding crespelle and stuffing them with squash and ricotta

How a rainy October day turned into a TV adventure, complete with crespelle, childhood traditions, and updates for the year ahead

Good morning, readers and friends. Have you had the last slice of panettone or are you planning to feast on it a little longer? Is your Christmas tree still up? We’re waiting for Livia to come home from her first day back at school so we can pack away all the baubles, trinkets, and lights, filing Christmas away for another 11 months. I’ll miss the twinkling fairy lights: they always brighten even the gloomiest days.

I’m writing this letter on Tuesday morning, January 7th, which feels like the real start of the year. Yesterday in Italy, we celebrated La Befana, or Epiphany, the final holiday that marks the end of the Christmas season.

While the Epiphany traditionally honors the Three Kings’ visit to baby Jesus, folklore tells a different story. On the night between January 5th and the 6th, La Befana, an old witch, pays a visit. She’s dressed in a long, patched-up dress, with a scarf covering her messy hair and a hooked nose. Forget the sweet nonna of Italian storytelling — La Befana flies on a broomstick, delivering candies and chocolates to well-behaved children and coal to the little rascals.

Teo and Livia during a calm holiday morning

Livia was visited by a modern-day Befana, as we packed just a handful of candies into her stocking—no milk chocolate, as we recently discovered she’s also lactose intolerant—and added plenty of glitter markers, wax crayons, and her very first water-based nail polish to nurture her creative outbursts.

So today, I’m back to my usual winter day-to-day routine—do I even have a routine? That’s a topic for another newsletter. My laptop is perched on the marble kitchen table, with a steaming cup of cinnamon and chamomile tea beside me to ward off the chill in the house, and a vase holding three intoxicatingly fragrant daffodils I picked from the garden a couple of days ago. This cozy setup is meant to spark inspiration as I write the first newsletter of 2025.

Over the past few days, I’ve also caught up on emails, responding to new requests to join our cooking classes. I’m so excited to kick off a new season of teaching and sharing meals in our Tuscan kitchen. If you’re planning a trip to Tuscany this year and would like to join one of our classes, don’t wait too long—we’re already 45% booked for the year!

I spent the holidays working on the cookbook manuscript, which is now almost finished, and I’m thrilled to dedicate more time to this newsletter in the coming year, and to new recipes to experiment with, that will end up in our cooking class menus and for our cook-alongs.

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Speaking of cook-along, here are the dates for the first three online events of the year, reserved for paying subscribers.

• Sunday, January 19th | 9:00 pm CET | 3:00 pm EST | 12:00 pm PST
  The stuffed fresh pasta of the Tuscan tradition: ricotta and spinach tortelli from Maremma and potato tortelli from Mugello.

• Sunday, February 16th | 9:00 pm CET | 3:00 pm EST | 12:00 pm PST
  Theme to be announced soon.

• Sunday, March 16th | 9:00 pm CET | 3:00 pm EST | 12:00 pm PST
  Theme to be announced soon.

After such a long introduction, let’s dive into today’s theme. I want to tell you about something that happened in 2024 that I completely forgot to share here: the time I was on TV.

TV host Elisa Isoardi and I with the crespelle we made together.

The time I was on TV

I get energized by a live audience, whether it’s a cooking class or a talk. I enjoy it—I feel like I can capture people’s attention because I know what I’m doing and what I’m talking about—and after a couple of minutes to warm up, I can even crack a few jokes. I have fun. I discovered I wasn’t afraid of public speaking when my very first boss, an HR specialist, forced me to give a speech in front of my colleagues. To my surprise, I managed to put one word after another in a not-too-shaky voice, revealing to everyone, especially to a nervous new employee, that I wasn’t half bad at it.

TV, though, is a completely different story. There are cameras, lights, microphones, and an entire setup. Even if everyone assures me I look natural, I feel like I’m dying inside. I’d much rather run to my kitchen, shut the door, wear my stained apron, and cook just for myself.

I once got physically sick the night before I was scheduled to be a guest on La Prova del Cuoco, a lunchtime food program on national television. I was panicking, knowing that the next day I’d have to cook gnudi from scratch in just 20 minutes, live, in front of millions of people, while competing against a food blogger friend.

Once I arrived, with Tommaso sitting in the audience behind me, I somehow found my groove and managed to make some very good gnudi, if I do say so myself. The only criticism I received—from a Michelin-starred chef, no less—was that the sage wasn’t crisp enough. Try making sage crisp when you have just 20 minutes to prepare an entire dish, I muttered to myself.

In the end, I had fun and, more importantly, loved that my entire family—across Tuscany, Basilicata, Puglia, and even Venezuela—had the chance to see me on TV. Everyone called my aunt afterward, and she assured me that I had been bravissima e bellissima!

Now, whenever I receive an email suggesting I’d be a perfect fit for a TV program, food contest, or reality show, my first instinct is to move it straight to the trash. (If you’ve reached out to me in the past, please know that I’m deeply grateful and honored for your consideration.)

Things were different, however, when last October, I was contacted by Valeria, my first connection for La Prova del Cuoco back in 2014, to participate in an episode of Linea Verde Italia.

What it takes to film a 15-minute clip in a home kitchen.

First, my family and I have been watching Linea Verde since I was a kid. It was our weekend lunchtime ritual—a window into Italian agriculture, food traditions, art, and nature. Every episode felt like a journey, teaching us something new each time.

Second, they were coming to film a recipe in my own kitchen. I thought I’d feel more confident in my familiar space, knowing my oven, my tools, and exactly where everything was.

Valeria asked me to come up with a recipe that would be seasonal (we were filming in October), rooted in local traditions, and easy to recreate at home with rewarding results. After a few back-and-forth emails, I decided on crespelle alla fiorentina—thin crepes typically stuffed with spinach, ricotta, and Parmigiano Reggiano, delicately flavored with a hint of nutmeg—but adapted with a seasonal twist: a filling of roasted squash, specifically Mantovana in my case.

The day before the RAI crew arrived from Rome, we scrubbed the studio until it sparkled, and I meticulously organized my mise-en-place: every ingredient measured, labelled, and arranged step by step. I also prepared a stack of paper-thin, lacy chestnut crespelle and a saucepan of lactose-free soy milk béchamel. Cleaning and organizing stuff always grounds me and makes me feel more confident.

Choosing my outfit took even longer, but I eventually settled on two colors that make me feel confident: a bright yellow top, symbolizing creativity, and a beautiful, artisanal teal-blue linen apron that almost feels like a regal dress.

On the big day, it was pouring rain, dark, and gloomy, but the lighting crew worked a little miracle, transforming the studio into what looked like a bright spring day. The host, Elisa Isoardi, immediately put me at ease. To avoid getting drenched, she had to enter the kitchen through the prop room instead of using the main door. When the episode finally aired, my friends immediately caught the little inside joke and perfectly recognized where she was coming from!

In about an hour, we managed to film the entire clip, and by the end, the piping hot, still-bubbling squash and ricotta crespelle were devoured by the entire crew.

What I liked about the whole experience?

1. It pushed me to step out of my comfort zone. I had to go beyond my boundaries, yet in an environment that made me feel confident—cooking and talking about something I know by heart. It was empowering.

2. It also made me more visible in my hometown. Despite the hundreds of people who come to our cooking classes, many local agriturismi, hotels, and activities barely know who we are.

3. The best part? Reading the flood of comments in our family chat, being stopped by Livia’s teachers, and receiving messages from the mothers of my elementary school friends or even neighbors who had no idea what I do for a living!

4. Most importantly, it was a great lesson for Livia. We watched the episode together, and I told her how scared I had been, but how I managed to face my fear. She was excited, protective, proud, and held my hand the entire time.

Watch me make crespelle starting at minute 35.

Watch the Linea Verde episode on Siena on RaiPlay here. You’ll need to register, but it’s free. Although the episode is in Italian, it’s easy to follow along and understand what’s happening. Plus, you’ll get a glimpse of my kitchen studio and the surrounding countryside, captured through extraordinary drone footage filmed that day.

Watch it here.

If you’re interested in making the recipe, I’ve got you covered. My blog archive features several crespelle recipes, including the butternut squash and ricotta crespelle I made for Linea Verde. You can browse the archive and find the classic spinach and ricotta crespelle alla fiorentina, and a spring-inspired version with asparagus and ricotta.

Get the recipe here.

These butternut squash and ricotta crêpes might seem daunting at first, but here’s the good news: you can prepare the components – crespelle, besciamella, butternut squash, and ricotta filling – ahead of time and simply bake the dish right before dinner. You can even prepare the entire dish a day in advance and reheat it with a splash of milk just before your family or friends gather around the table.

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This brings me to my blog…

If you’ve been following me since the very beginning—and I know for sure that some of you have—you might know JulsKitchen.com as well as the lines on your hand. But if you’re new here—and about 8,000 of you joined me in the last year or so—you might not be familiar with it yet. My blog is an almost 16-year-old archive of food-focused stories, written in both Italian and English, featuring more than 700 seasonal recipes, most of which are rooted in Tuscan and regional Italian traditions. I like to call it my longest relationship: when I started writing it, I was still a twenty-something girl full of dreams, living with her parents and far from meeting the love of her life. Then 12 years ago I met Tommaso, and our paths crossed both personally and professionally…

We shifted our main focus to Substack exactly four years ago, during one of the most challenging and uncertain times for us, when COVID restrictions prevented us from teaching in-person cooking classes, and we had a three-month-old daughter.

The blog archive remains—and will always remain—free for everyone to browse. There, you’ll find everything from a comforting pasta and patate soup to this incredible hazelnut cake.

You can read more about the evolution of my food writing, from blog to Substack, here.

…and to this newsletter

Starting in February—exactly four years after we launched our subscription option on Substack—we’ll be making some exciting changes to the newsletter. While most of our recipes and cook-alongs are already part of the paid subscription, we’ll soon be moving nearly all of our newsletters behind the paywall as well.

This shift allows us to dedicate more time and energy to crafting high-quality recipes, compelling stories, and meaningful connections within this growing community of food lovers. As a paid subscriber, you’ll have access to exclusive content, including new recipes, insider tips, personal stories, and monthly cook-alongs designed to deepen your confidence in the kitchen and love for Italian cooking.

If you’re not in a position to join as a paid subscriber right now, I completely understand. I’m deeply grateful for the time and attention you’ve given us so far. There will still be one free newsletter each month, along with the blog, our cookbooks, and soon, the podcast again.

This wasn’t an easy decision, as I’ve always wanted my writing and recipes to be accessible to as many people as possible. But I also believe this change will allow us to continue sharing the very best of what we do while supporting the sustainability of this project.

Thank you for being part of this journey. I can’t wait to share more with you in 2025 and beyond!

Grazie di cuore, and happy new year!
Giulia 😊✨