LA Food & Wine Festival: Dining Giada Style

August/12/2012 08:45 AM Filed in: Reviews

LA Food and Wine Festival
Giada’s Festa Italiana
Review by Nicole Hanratty
@LifeofaRockStar

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(Pictured above: Bustling Nokia Theatre LA Live hosting the LA Food & Wine Festival August 9th)

Regardless of whom I was telling about attending Giada’s Festa Italiana at LA Food and Wine Festival, the response I received was always the same. “Isn’t she that really pretty tiny chef? How does she stay so thin?”

(Pictured above: Giada De Laurentiis at LA Food & Wine Festival, August 9, 2012 Nokia Theatre LA Live)

My reply: “Yes, she is that stunning Italian chef, and I have no idea how she stays so thin!” (Personal note: If I were her, I would weigh a thousand pounds. I can only surmise that Giada cooks whilst sprinting on a treadmill and limits herself to micro-sized bites of her delicious cuisine.)

Giada trained in Paris at Le Cordon Bleu and is listed in Le Cordon Bleu’s brochure under famous alumni alongside the greats like Julia Child. Giada specialized in both Cuisine and Patisserie, which in and of itself an impressive feat.

What makes Giada De Laurentiis a rock star chef in our book is how she finds spare time to work with Oxfam America, a charity that responds to world hunger, is on scene when disasters strike, works on campaigns to improve the way US aid is delivered, encourages revenue transparency in the oil, gas and mining industries, rebuilds devastated communities, and empowers poor people to feed their families. (Current food emergencies with which Oxfam is involved and offering assistance include: Sahel food crisis, East Africa food crisis, Conflict in the Sudans, and 2011 El Salvador floods. For more information visit OxfamAmerica.org or follow @OxfamAmerica on Twitter.)

Giada De Laurentiis

What is unknowable about Giada until you are in her presence, is that her energy is magnetic. Her smile is welcoming and Giada goes out of her way to make herself accessible to all of her fans. Thursday night in her LA Food and Wine booth at Nokia Theatre LA Live, Giada drew a long line of people anxious to try what she was personally overseeing and dishing up--a delicious couscous with watermelon along side a hearty pasta dish--and an even longer line of people just waiting and hoping for a photo op with the New York Times best selling cookbook author and Emmy winning celebrity chef.

Giada tweeted later that the perfect little black dress she was wearing that night was a Diane Von Furstenberg.

Giada De Laurentiis ‏@GDeLaurentiis
Thx Diane Von Fustenberg“@AnneGRVA: @GDeLaurentiis What is the dress that u wore @ LA festa italiana? Black scoop neck - I love it!”

I guarantee no one left her booth disappointed. Her food was fantastic--a fresh and light dish mixed with a savory and filling one--and Giada welcomed guest after guest with friendly hugs while posing for one photo after the next. Aside from her ability to bring ingredients together in flavorful recipes, she has a contagious smile that brings warmth to her meals. Giada pulled off Festa Italiana flawlessly and were thrilled to be in attendance.

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(Pictured above: L to R Shauna Serwe and Nicole Hanratty enjoying LA Food & Wine Festival)

For more information on Giada De Laurentiis visit: www.giadadelaurentiis.com
Follow @GDeLaurentiis on Twitter
Follow @NokiaTheatre on Twitter
Follow @LAFoodWine on Twitter

Via LAFoodWine.com here are some highlights of the chefs plating and links to their professional bios: