It happens, especially in these long gray and rainy afternoons, to regret for a little while summer, the season of garden parties, barbecues and cocktails under the stars, caressed by a gentle breeze. It is a feeling that does not last long, though, because the autumn and winter have their unquestionable winning points, just think of cosy dinners at home, next to a fireplace to roast chestnuts in an old cast iron pan with holes, rocked by the a good smell spreading in the room, a dry and reassuring smell of fire, wood and old times.

During summer the available spaces are often larger, while the good weather and the sun tun turn everyone’s mood into a happy and open one. When the warm season surrenders to the rainy winter, though, you have to squeeze all your friends and festive ideas into rather small rooms with a stormy weather outside and creepy branches rustling against your windows. As a perfect host, your task is to put everyone at ease, giving a feeling of warm hospitality.

How to do that? How to make pleasant and memorable even the last minute improvised dinner? How to make everyone feel welcomed and involve them into the party?

I try to involve my friends in the imaginative construction of their plate, so that everyone can customize his own sandwich, or pizza, or tigella according to his taste and preferences. As a former marketing student, I strongly believe in the importance of the customized service and the totally involving experience… a few memories left from my University years!

Involve the clients – in this case your guests – and make them feel pampered and unique. Draw them into an event and this will be memorable for them. Translated into few words, what has it to do with a dinner at home? Read the rest of this entry »

A week of mild and unexpected temperatures welcomed my foodblogger friends here in Tuscany. Warm sun, blue sky and the trees dressed in their Sunday best: the countryside put on a show, proud in its red and yellow foliage, proud of the changes, did not conceal the passage of time, but showed it off with pride, perfectly aware of the charm of this never ending changing. It was so attractive to switch off the words in a stunned silence in front of a valley of fading vines, from ochre to orange.

The change is part of the essence of Nature, of the surrounding world and of us human beings. I am fascinated by the changes though, frankly, they scare me every time because they make me lose balance. There’s a quote I would have written in my diary as a teenager, a quote that perfectly explain the importance of losing the balance: if you want to take a step forward, you need to lose your balance for a moment (M. Gramellini). My wish is to live aware that the changes are nothing more than a gift, the spur you need to make a step further, even if uncertain, to reach your goal.

These days, thinking about changes and skipping voluntarily the hairstyles, styles and musical taste evolution that carried me quite painless from childhood, throughout adolescence until the age of reason, I began to browse through my blog recipes.

At the beginning, during the first months of Juls’ Kitchen life, I loved experimenting with recipes that were as far away from my everyday culinary world as possible, such as curries, fried rice, cupcakes and macarons. Then I started to feel the urge to know better that world that everyone - especially abroad – love with transportation, and in which I had the fortune to live: Tuscany. Here’s how I came to home and family cooking, to discover my roots, my smell and taste memories, so deeply connected to my grandfather’s chops or my mum’s crumble omelette.

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Just two months before Christmas, before a very special Christmas, this year. I’ve always known that if there was a Christmas to be remembered, after the many jolly festive days of childhood, it should have been the Christmas of my 30 years. So here we are, just two months to go and I’ll know if my predictions were right!

I love the Christmas day, I love the thrilling feeling of an early awakening on a cold and orange-and-cinnamon-smelling day, I love all the feelings related to that very special day: generosity, hope, love, family.

Do you think I am predictable? Yes, I might have said the usual things, listing the well known feelings that everyone relates to Christmas. Isn’t this predictable sensation that makes special the magic of Christmas? You are perfectly aware of which kind of love will rise in your heart, but every year Christmas knows how to play with your expectations, surprising you and leaving that adorable childish awe in your eyes, where the Christmas tree sparkles yet another year. Read the rest of this entry »

As I am writing this post I still can feel the heady smell lingering here. Go figure, until a few years ago truffle for me was just a creamy and rather anonymous spread  on toasted bread bought for special dinners. An aberration, I know, but as we usually say in Italy: no one was born already learned.

Then I received as a gift a little one, a true one. A real truffle looks like an old ingredient of the gnomes, precious, with a dusting of brown soil to cover it, a product of the forest and the trees, with an unique scent, intense and persistent. A priceless product, strictly related to its territory.

The Associazione per il Centro Nazionale Studi Tartufo in cooparation with Ente Fiera Internazionale del Tartufo and Comune di Alba invited a number of foodbloggers to take part to the “PASTA, TARTUFO E 2.0″ competition: the organizers sent us a White Truffle of Alba and a selection of Agnesi pasta. The goal was to cook and post a creative recipe with these two ingredients. This is the basis, then our imagination could work free. Read the rest of this entry »