Camilla De Falco: recipes become a book that preserves a bond

A notebook rooted in everyday life

Il ricettario delle meraviglie did not begin as an attempt to create a public figure. It grew from a simple practice: choose a dish, test it, write it down and share it. Camilla De Falco loved cooking and, during her illness, that passion became an everyday language with her mother, Alice Galbusera. Camilla died in July 2025, aged eight and a half, after living with neuroblastoma from early childhood. Published by Cook with Cairo Editore, the book gathers the work they did together and keeps her curiosity at its centre. It includes immediate dishes such as toast and broth with pasta, as well as more elaborate recipes, from a festive roast to leek and pecorino risotto. Cooking appears as it was for them: shared, practical time that gave shape to their days.

Camilla’s recipes and voice

The volume follows the energy with which Camilla observed and experimented. The dishes are not presented as a technical catalogue but as stages in a family journey, tested one by one with Alice’s help. Publication does not erase the project’s domestic origin; it gives it space, allowing Camilla’s choices, tastes and care to guide the reader. In his foreword, Antonino Cannavacciuolo evokes the continuity created whenever someone prepares one of the recipes again. The idea is restrained and powerful: pages cannot replace a presence, but they can let real gestures continue to circulate. The book can therefore also be read as a story about memory and making, about what a family preserves and what it chooses to give to others.

From a book to a network of support

After Camilla’s death, her parents created MagiCa Milla ODV. The association supports the oncohaematology departments of Rome’s Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital and patients’ families. Its official website states precisely that Camilla’s parents donate the book royalties to the organisation—a specific commitment, not a generic claim that every sales receipt goes to it. The project connects private memory with public, verifiable action focused on research, care and support. On 6 October, the Women in Food Charity Dinner organised by Cook Corriere della Sera was dedicated to Camilla and MagiCa Milla. The association says the evening’s proceeds support oncohaematology research at Bambino Gesù. The value lies not in exceptionalising the story, but in the continuity and clarity of that work.

The television conversation

On 21 October, Alice presented the book on Antonella Clerici’s programme È sempre mezzogiorno. The broadcast introduced the recipe collection to a wider audience and featured one dish closely associated with Camilla, “toast on a cloud”, prepared in the studio by Fulvio Marino. Television amplified a story already developed through the book and association without changing its core: a child, her love of cooking, her bond with her mother, and a family’s decision to turn remembrance into support for other children. This delicate balance calls for attentive language and checked facts. That is also why fleeting sales rankings add little: the project’s meaning is more enduring than any commercial position.

A story to read with care

Speaking about Camilla means avoiding both silence and rhetoric. The recipe book offers another route: begin with what she did and loved, without attributing undocumented thoughts to her or reducing her life to illness. The recipes preserve taste, invention, successful trials and adjustments, and her closeness with Alice. Around the book, a community is choosing to fund and accompany paediatric oncohaematology. Il ricettario delle meraviglie is therefore several things at once: an accessible cookbook, a family archive, an editorial gesture and a way to introduce MagiCa Milla. Above all, it preserves a child’s name and passions, asking readers for the most concrete form of attention: to read, cook and remember with respect.