Cooking with an Italian accent

Can food help you learn a language?
In this episode, I sit down with Italian teacher Margherita Berti to talk about learning Italian through food, curiosity, and everyday life.
We discuss why passion is often a better teacher than grammar, how to build confidence when speaking, and the small habits that can help you make Italian part of your daily routine—whether you're planning a trip to Italy or simply dreaming of bringing a little more Italy into your life.
Where to find Margherita: Italian Matters, her book Speak the World Italian: History & Culture Through Language and her Instagram profile: italianmatters


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In this episode of Cooking with an Italian Accent, I talk with Melina Hammer, a longtime friend of Letters from Tuscany—food stylist, photographer, recipe developer, award-winning author of A Year at Catbird Cottage, and host at Catbird Cottage in the Hudson Valley—for the first conversation in a new series dedicated to other people’s pantries.
We explore the pantry as a place of security, abundance, memory, and possibility, from beans, jams, canned tomatoes, tinned fish, and honey to fermented garlic, tomato confit, and the freezer as a second pantry. A warm conversation about how the ingredients we keep close shape the way we cook, eat, and live.
The podcast now lives inside our newsletter on Substack, Letters from Tuscany, where you’ll find all the links mentioned in this episode, and where you can join the conversation by leaving a comment.


This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit julskitchen.substack.com/subscribe

Today we’re celebrating the release of Vegetables the Italian Way: Turning Simple and Fresh into Extraordinary.
In this episode, I take you behind the scenes of the book: how it was born from years of cooking classes, conversations, and questions from students and readers.
This is not a vegetarian cookbook. It’s a book about how we truly cook and eat in Italy, where vegetables are at the centre of the table, shaped by seasonality, simplicity, and everyday habits.
I’ll also share the 5 ideas that define the book and might change the way you cook vegetables at home.
✨ In this episode, you’ll hear about:
- Why vegetables are often missing from Italian restaurant menus
- What “vegetable-forward” really means in Italian cooking
- How Italian home cooking differs from what you see when travelling
- Why overcooking vegetables is sometimes the key to flavour
- How to balance bitterness and make it delicious
- What it means to think of Italian cooking as a “grammar”
- How this book was tested and shaped in real cooking classes
Read more about Vegetables the Italian Way here:
* Vegetables the Italian Way: cover reveal & the story behind the book
* 5 things to know about Vegetables, the Italian way
Find it wherever books are sold, or purchase your copy here:
https://en.julskitchen.com/cookbooks/vegetables-the-italian-way


This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit julskitchen.substack.com/subscribe

After being asked to define my cooking style, I realised that none of the usual labels — creative, healthy-conscious, rule-breaking — truly fit.
The word I was looking for was simpler: traditional.
In this episode, a natural continuation of the one dedicated to my nonna Marcella, I reflect on the kind of tradition I stand for: one rooted in seasonality, rural knowledge, emotional rituals, and collective memory.
From Carnival sweets to grape focaccia in September, from foraging wild herbs to kneading bread that marks the passing of time, this is the tradition I stand for.
The podcast now lives inside the newsletter on Substack, where you’ll find all the links to the recipes mentioned in this episode and can join the conversation by leaving a comment.
Recipes and dishes mentioned:
- Cenci and frittelle for Carnival
- Pici from Val d’Orcia
- Sicilian biancomangiare
- Castagnaccio
- Tuscan Chickpea flour cake
Nocino



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After a long break, Cooking with an Italian Accent is back.
In this episode, I share a personal letter and a goodbye to my nonna Marcella, who passed away last year at almost 97. Through old family videos, memories of Easter lunches, homemade tagliatelle, and everyday gestures, I reflect on how she shaped my way of cooking, eating, and understanding tradition.
This is an episode about food memories, grief and gratitude, and about tradition as something alive — not frozen in time, but carried forward through cooking.
The podcast now lives inside the newsletter on Substack, where you’ll find all the links to the recipes mentioned in this episode and can join the conversation by leaving a comment.
Recipes and dishes mentioned:
- her flawless lasagne
- her rice pudding cake
- her bignè alla crema
- her tagliatelle with tomato paste, oregano, prosciutto cotto and cream
- the very best stuffed round zucchini
- extra creamy pasta e patate
- the birthday cake she baked me for decades
- candied orange peels dipped in chocolate


This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit julskitchen.substack.com/subscribe