Lina was born in the misty foothills of Piedmont, near the town of Asti, where the vineyards roll like waves and every grandmother owns a pasta board older than time itself. Piedmont is the proud home of agnolotti, and Lina’s spinach and ricotta version has achieved legendary status – a silky, green-flecked filling wrapped in impossibly delicate pasta parcels.

Her father, Paolo, was a winemaker – serious, quiet, a man who measured seasons by grape ripeness. But her mother, Silvana, was the colour in the house. A warm, laughing woman who believed everything – from heartbreak to harvest stress – could be fixed with fresh ricotta, a bunch of wild spinach, and a little burro e salvia (butter and sage).

Lina learned early how to forage for spinach along the riverbanks and how to strain ricotta until it was as smooth as silk. Her agnolotti were always made al momento – nothing frozen, nothing rushed. She believed food should never be louder than the conversation around it. But when you bit into her agnolotti, you’d go silent anyway.

Where others chased fads, Lina stayed humble. She still uses her mother’s ricotta strainer, patched together with string and love. And when she makes agnolotti, she swears she can still hear Silvana humming over the stove.

Lina says:

“Good agnolotti are like good children – soft and tender.”