It was 2011 and I was head deep in work because I had two jobs at the time: my regular newspaper job AND I was also maintaining the food channel for the now defunct Tree.com. Although I was stressed out trying to find balance between the two, they’re both a part of what I love to do: newspaper design AND writing about food. My job at Tree.com was great. Though the time we worked together was short, I met a lot of people whom I now consider friends.
One of the highlights of working at Tree.com was meeting Giada De Laurentiis. The opportunity was actually offered to me by Katie Dillion aka La Jolla Mom who passed on it. And instead of writing about the meeting for this site, I decided a better venue would be to feature it on Tree.com.
Giada De Laurentiis was at the guest of honor at the Sicilian Festival in Little Italy and was on hand to sign copies of her new cookbook as well as promote Belle Serra Wines. Before the book signing, I had exactly 15 minutes to interview her, which is time for only a few questions. You can read the entire interview here, but behind the scenes I was nervous wreck: laughing uncontrollably with Paul recording the entire thing with an iPhone. There was only one snippet that worked out: her mispronunciation pet peeves.
If you’ve ever watch Giada’s show, she tends overemphasize Italian words. BIZ-Chochi. LEE-Munh-CHELL-oh. You get it. It was one of my favorite projects and I learned a lot from the experience (mostly not to interrupt while interviewing someone and that an external microphone is a absolute necessity).
And despite what people say about her head to body proportions, she looked fine to us.
Related: My experience dining at Gordon Ramsay’s Hotel Hell or having ice cream with Andrew Zimmern.
My Burning Kitchen 
Every time I think about mascarpone, I think of how Giada would say it. I admit, I used to think it was prounounced Mars-ca-pone.
Heh. Did you roll your r’s when saying marscapone? You know, I think there’s an app with all her pronunciations. I would check it out but I don’t want to waste memory on my phone.
How funny that she actually answered that question. But I think her way of say spaghetti is a bit too much.
Yes, it goes against everything I think I know. I agree, that I would never pronounce spaghetti they way she does.
Darlene, your smile is a big as Giada’s. Lovely.
Thanks! My parents thankfully thought I needed braces and it’s been a priceless asset.