Joanna Moeller is not your stereotypical social media influencer. The married mother of two lives in Lower Manhattan and posts cooking reels daily, recording and editing everything herself, and never raising her voice—even when one of her dogs intrudes with a loud “Woof!” On her Instagram account @spaghettiroots_nyc, she doesn’t showboat or shriek, instead just calmly cooking her way through whatever she’s in the mood to cook.
In one recent reel, Moeller sets out to create a simple pasta dish. She wears a green cardigan and whispers that it’s freezing in New York, so she’s going to make a slow-cooked beef and pork ragu. The soundtrack is comparably loud—it’s a rolling Italian ballad with dramatic singing—but she remains focused. Her gestures are restrained; she grabs a pinch of sea salt from a yellow glass bowl and sprinkles it into a black rimmed white pot over a mix of ground pork and beef. Then she adds the rest of the ingredients, stirs, and soon the sauce is added to the pasta and the reel ends. No cute sign-off or catch phrase, just a delicious-looking bowl of pasta in meat sauce.
Moeller has recently started contributing some of her recipes to Appetito—including this flavorful and healthy Grilled Spicy Swordfish Caponata—and soon, she will spearhead a new series of reels in which she will focus on braised meats. Before the @spaghettiroots_nyc x Appetito collaboration begins, we asked Moeller to introduce herself, and she obliged in this quick Q&A. Follow along on Instagram and keep an eye out for the new braised meats series early in 2025.
Why did you start @spaghettiroots_nyc?
My intention was to really just put out there what my passion was. I had a small circle of people interested in food, but I never had direct connections to people in the food industry. That rapidly changed. People started taking to my Instagram, liking my videos and the way I photographed the food. They found me to be very relaxing.
Now we're at over 31,000 followers of doing what I love to do. It's mixing all of my worlds—I love cooking, I love food, I love highlighting restaurants.
How did you get into cooking?
Going back to my childhood, what I used to play was “cooking show.” I always had a passion for it. I would watch cooking shows on repeat. That's all I wanted to do. My mom was a great cook, and I learned a lot from her.
Is your mother Italian or Italian American?
She's Italian American. She always hosted so many people, and I always helped her in the kitchen. Then she started to work, and I took on cooking myself. So I started cooking at like nine, making family dinners. I know how to cook for a lot of people, and that was great experience for me. It felt like a natural progression to get into this. I got away from it for a while in my 20s and 30s. I always cooked, but I had to find a job to support myself. I had kids…fast forward, kids getting older, just a natural progression to get back into the kitchen and find a way to make this happen for myself.
Are you Italian American on both sides?
My father is from Sicily, so I’m first-generation on his side. My mom is half Italian and half English.
What is your philosophy on ingredients?
Of course, I try to cook seasonally. I think that's like a cultural thing. Quality is always my top priority for food. My parents always had, like the freshest fruits and vegetables, really good meat. My mom would never buy a meat product from a grocery store. It had to be either from a butcher or an Italian specialty store. So that was always ingrained in me. Now, I shop at Whole Foods or Eataly—I don't go too crazy traveling around the city to find things.
How did you get into Instagram? Did you study how to make Reels?
I was always really into social media. I thought it was such a great outlet for foodies and food people. I think the first step is to really focus on people that you admire and look at their styles and their presentation and things like that.
Who are some of the people you followed when you were getting started?
I really like @pierceabernathy. I like his style. As far as cooking role models, for me, it's Frank Prisinzano. He has taught me a lot about technique. And Lidia Bastianich, of course. I love a lot of her recipes.
How do you decide what to cook for your Reels?
I'm not a planner at all. So when I wake up in the morning, I think about what I want to cook that day. I'll go to the food store, see what things look like, get inspired, find what's fresh, and go from there. I'm not a person that has a repertoire of recipes. I change things up all the time, and just go with the flow, and somehow it always works out.
What are some recipes that you've posted that have resonated the most with your audience?
The top three right now are the roasted chicken with the croutons that went viral. There is a pasta Genovese that did really well. And there is a puff pastry with caramelized onions, apple and gruyère.
Lastly, we want to know: Do you have anyone helping run @spaghettiroots_nyc or is it all DIY?
I do everything myself. All the filming, all the editing. I don't use any apps. A lot of people just throw [videos] into an app and it'll do it for them, but for me, it really has to have this flow and engagement. I'm really creating something that I would want to watch. That's like the most important thing at the end of the day.
