Yeah I watch The Food Network every now and then. I live on my own, cook my own food from time to time, so an occasional cooking tip sure wouldn't hurt.

Let's talk about one of my favorite personalities on The Food Network: Giada de Laurentiis. For the longest time, I referred to her as "that chick from Food Network who looks a lot like Natalie Portman". I first saw a lot of her on Everyday Italian (which shows in the Philippines on The Lifestyle Network, though I suspect those episodes are already years old even as they show it now).

Giada is a professional chef, food stylist, author and TV personality. Besides Everyday Italian (which had been on The Food Network since 2003), we also get to catch her on Giada's Weekend Getaways. She also hosted the network specials Behind the Bash and had a 2-part special called Giada In Paradise.

Things You Probably Didn't Know About Giada

It was only recently that I was able to know more about her from my online research. Here are a few interesting bits I found about her on Wikipedia:

• I didn't know her last name was "de Laurentiis". Her grandfather is legendary film producer Dino de Laurentiis, who gave us (among a host of other projects) Barbarella (1968), Serpico (1973), the remake of King Kong (1976), Flash Gordon (1980), Dune (1984), Army of Darkness (1992), and most of the Hannibal Lecter movies, including Manhunter (1986), that one with William Petersen.
• Given her family background, she's really grown up Hollywood-style. Her mother is actress Veronica de Laurentiis, and her father is actor-producer Alex de Benedetti, a close colleague of Dino de Laurentiis, Veronica's father. Her siblings are also, for the most part, in the business of entertainment.
  

• Giada originally had no plans to go into the "family business", which was why she pursued her interests in the culinary arts to begin with. It was after styling a piece in Food & Wine Magazine in 2001 that Food Network contacted her. She admitted to being a little uncomfortable in front of the camera at first, but later on got more used to it, and so became more relaxed on air.
  
• According to her entry on Wikipedia, when Everyday Italian first aired, the Food Network received emails accusing the network of hiring a model or actress pretending to cook instead of a real chef. Well, we all know better now, don't we?
• On an episode of Iron Chef America (in November 2006, actually), we see Giada and Bobby Flay cook off against Rachael Ray and Mario Batali. Rachael and Mario won that time. Nevertheless, it was loads of fun.