Goodbye January
We embraced comfort food as January’s theme, and it gave us the chance to pasta with lentils, butternut squash and ricotta crêpes, comfort food in a bowl, comfort food as childhood memories, Ciaccino, or the food that gives you comfort when you make it, apple cakes, and amaretti tart with pastry cream.
We’ll be sharing our experience and teaching four classes on Food Writing and Food Storytelling at Food. Design dell’esperienza gastronomica (in Italian), at Scuola Holden in Turin, in partnership with Gambero Rosso.
I ate the first schiacciata alla fiorentina of the year.
I read Miss Eliza's English Kitchen: A Novel of Victorian Cookery and Friendship, and loved it. It is the real-life story of Eliza Acton, poet and food writer, and her assistant as they revolutionized British cooking and cookbooks around the world. If you love cookbooks - and I know you do -, well, you have to read this!
We started the editing process of our cookbook (yay).
I did an interview with Phoebe Hunt for Italy Magazine, you can read it here: Talking Tuscan Cooking with Giulia Scarpaleggia (premium content).
How was your January?
(This is the amaretti tart with pastry cream, still dreaming about it)
Welcome, February
The holidays have come and gone, as have the rich, stodgy foods of the season. When you’re surrounded by Christmas lights, decorations, and jolly music, all you crave is fatty meat stews, warming creamy soups, and decadent chocolate cakes.
But now that winter days have wiped out the festivities, what is left are frigid temperatures, cold, clear skies, and biting winds. This is when I find myself craving foods that reflect the season: crisp, clear, and bitter. It is time for kale and radicchio.
This will be a crucial month for us, as we’re already well into the edits of our cookbook manuscript, and cooking up a storm to shoot all the recipes.
Pantry staple will come in handy!
February is going to be about all things pantry
I already announced February’s theme, something close to my heart: a celebration of the pantry.
We’ll delve into recipes made with pantry staples, pantry essentials, and recipes to stock up your pantry.
We talked about pantry staples in this thread, let me know what is your must-have pantry ingredient:
Let’s celebrate! Juls’ Kitchen is 13th years old
Last year I wrote:
I’ve been posting on this blog for 12 years. When I started, I was 27, I had a full-time job in communication and events, I was single, and I lived with my parents and my sister. I was a dreamer, a fervent optimistic, a weekend baker, and an improvised home cook. On February 1st, 2009, I decided to start a food blog because I had the urge to be passionate about something, and I thought I could channel my curiosity for food through the pages of a blog.
Now I am almost 40. I have a husband, Tommaso, who’s also my best friend and business partner, a 5-month daughter, Livia, and two dogs, Noa and Teo. We live next door to my parents and grandma, in our small apartment with the best view over the hills. I’m still a dreamer, even though my intense optimism has been toned down by age and a no-nonsense approach to life. I’m still an occasional baker – hello high insulin -, but mostly a passionate home cook.
Six recipes to cook this month
Acquacotta, the Tuscan stone soup. It is a nomad dish that followed the people from the mountain Amiata who moved in winter to the plain of Maremma in search of work, bringing with them a few ingredients, among which there were always onions. The basic ingredients of acquacotta are indeed water, bread and onions.
Home-made tagliatelle with kale pesto. Cavolo nero is the most common, everyday ingredient in a Tuscan winter. You find it at the market, its waxy, dark green leaves hoarded in bunches next to other representatives of the Brassica genus. Cavolo nero is the key ingredient of the world-famous ribollita, a bean and stale bread soup, but also a versatile seasonal ingredient.
Ricotta and kale gnudi. There are two crucial ingredients here that can help you ease the anxiety while waiting for your kale gnudi to float to the top: ricotta and cavolo nero, the Tuscan kale. Use well-drained ricotta and squeeze very well the cooked kale.
Cannellini bean and chicken salad, with pickled giardiniera and radicchio. With the chicken meat, I made a salad that sits in between winter and spring, between the soothing comfort of beans and shredded chicken and the freshness of radicchio and pickled giardiniera. It reminds me of those spring days that are still cold, with a sharp wind but a clear sunny sky.
Schiacciata alla Fiorentina. Despite its name that reminds of the savoury flatbread so typical of all our bakeries, schiacciata alla Fiorentina is a sweet cake, fragrant with orange and vanilla. During Carnival time it appears in every bakery, pastry shop, and bar in Florence.
Cenci for Carnival. In Tuscany, during Carnival days, we traditionally eat cenci (literally rugs, fried dough) and rice fritters, and I really wouldn’t be able to choose which one I prefer.
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