Let me tell you about us…

I was born in Parma in a family of farmers and producers of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese. I graduated in simultaneous interpreting in English and Spanish at the University of Trieste, a passion that later became my job. The big change occurred when in 1997 I took over the specialised language service company Interconsul, of which I am still the CEO.

In 2010, all of a sudden, Gaia, my little girl who was 6 years old at the time, was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes and Celiac disease. This was the beginning of my ‘second life’.

For three years, every day, I became the chef of special recipes adapted to Gaia’s needs, and Gaia herself, with her little brother Nicolò, became the (not always loving!) judge of mum, who, driven by her passion for cooking, struggled with the two new and unwieldy guests: carbohydrate counting and gluten-free dishes.

At the end of 2013, the recipes that won the 3 hearts from the strict home judges were published in my book ‘Uno Chef per Gaia‘, a narrative medicine diary in which I recount our family’s journey towards regaining normality, now at its second edition.

In July 2021, type 1 diabetes knocked also at the door of my son Nicolò, a teenage basketball player who was already an expert in nutrition and counting for having shared them with his sister on a daily basis for many years. My ‘third life’ began.

Today, Uno Chef per Gaia is therefore much more: it is a little piece of our lives, a blog through which to share ideas, recipes, interesting ideas and updates, to make meal times a celebration and not a deprivation as is often the case for those who suffer from these diseases.

In short, it is a space through which I want to share our experiences and talk about a cuisine that everyone can try at home, but also give useful information and suggestions without the presumption of feeling like an expert on the subject, but just a passionate and enthusiastic experimenter.

Precisely for this reason, you will never find any criticism in the pages and articles, those I have decided to avoid in order to focus exclusively on ideas and products that have impressed me positively.

That’s who we are!

 

Behind the scenes

There are two people who made the blog possible, Chiara Marandojournalist, and Lorenzo Moreni, photographer and videomaker: without their professionalism and availability I would never have embarked on this adventure! Meeting them was one of the many gifts life has given me.