Introducing cook with anana
A slow-cooked newsletter from the kitchen of anana
If Anna Roncaglia had a newsletter, this would be it.
She wouldn’t say much. She’d just roll out pasta, nod at your chopping skills, and remind you, without really saying it, that the good stuff takes time.
She was born in Modena. She’s 82, and yet she still makes tagliatelle by hand. Her favorite dish is tortellini in brodo. Her ragù simmers slow and low not because it has to, but because that’s how it settles into itself.
She once said:
“I like to cook because I feel it gives pleasure to be together with family.”
That’s the spirit of Cook with anana - a newsletter from anana, a platform dedicated to preserving generational recipes and the stories that live inside them.
What You’ll Get (Twice a Month)
Real stories from real nonnas (and nonnos)
Recipes passed down by hand, not Google Doc
Kitchen tips that taste like home
A moment to slow down
No hacks. No “what I eat in a day.” Just family food, the way it was meant to be shared.
About Nonna Anna
Anna Roncaglia, an 82-year-old Nonna from Modena, still rolls out pasta by hand, still sews with precision, and still prefers tomato season to any holiday.
From a young age, Anna found joy in her mother’s kitchen, where she first learned to cook out of both necessity and love. As one of seven siblings, she recalls a childhood filled with shared responsibilities and lots of laughter.
Anna’s kitchen is where memories take shape.
About the Recipe
Nonna Anna’s Slow-Cooked Ragù
⏲️ Simmer time: ~40 minutes (but better if left longer)
This isn’t a weeknight dinner. It’s a Sunday ritual - the kind of dish that waits for you to be ready, not the other way around.
Shopping List:
1 carrot, finely chopped
1 celery stalk, finely chopped
Olive oil
1 pork sausage, casing removed
450g ground beef
60ml white wine
450g tomato sauce (passata preferred)
Salt to taste
How to Make It:
Step 1: Dice Your Carrots and Celery
Peel and cut your carrot and celery longways, then dice into small pieces.
Step 2: Cook Your Vegetables
In a bowl, drizzle olive oil and add your diced carrots and celery. Set to medium heat and let brown.
Step 3: Cook Your Meat
While the vegetables cook, add the pork sausage to the pot and break it into smaller pieces. Add the ground beef, then pour in white wine and cover while it cooks.
Step 4: Make the Sauce
Once your meat has browned, add tomato sauce, a pinch of salt, cover, and let cook for at least half an hour on medium-low heat.
Step 5: Mangia, Mangia
Now that you’re done, there’s only one thing left to do.
Nonna’s Notes
Cut small. Smaller than you think.
Stir often. The sauce feels it when you don’t.
Lower the heat near the end - let the sauce settle into itself.
A Brief Origin Story
Like most good things, ragù started off fancy — a meat-based sauce served in noble houses in Emilia-Romagna, sometime in the 1700s.
Eventually, it made its way into everyday kitchens, where it got less pretentious and more delicious. Where it simmered on Sundays. Where it filled homes instead of banquet halls.
Bolognese ragù became the iconic version - pork, beef, tomato, and wine but every nonna has her own. This one is Anna’s. And it deserves a slow Sunday.
A Little Life Lesson from Nonna
“I really enjoy wasting time in the garden,” she told me once,
as if that wasn’t the whole secret to a beautiful life.
What is anana?
anana is a platform that believes the best food doesn’t need reinventing.
It just needs remembering.
We collect recipes from grandparents around Italy, the ones they never wrote down, but cooked over and over until they became part of who they are.
We tell their stories because food like this shouldn’t be lost to time.
It should be passed on - the way Nonna Anna passed hers on to me.
❤️ Forward this to someone who still thinks ragù is just “spaghetti sauce.”
(It’s not. And we love them, but they need this.)