My mother and I, our favorite part of any baked pasta is the top, where the cheese gets crusty.
I think children learning to cook can be such a wonderful thing. It can help build confidence, make them feel good about themselves. It helped me build my ego and even start to get acceptance at school. I’d bring things to class that I’d cooked at home.
I grew up in the kitchen, mostly with my grandfather, my mother and my aunt Raffy.
You just need a little perspective. Warmed chocolate can give you that.
Stock up your pantry and your freezer with things that aren’t perishable: Your favorite jar of tomato sauce that lists ‘tomato’ as the first ingredient, lots of grains, olive oils, vinegars, tomato pastes, onions, shallots. When you go to the store, you only have to pick up meats and produce.
I don’t eat a lot of anything. A little bit of everything, but not a lot of everything. Small meals all day long.
I think it can be hard for any man to sometimes be upstaged by his wife. So when I’m home, I work very hard to be Todd’s wife and Jade’s mother. I have no problem going back to those traditional roles. I try to be Giada, the young girl that he met 20 years ago and fell in love with.
I lost my brother when he was 30, and that was devastating for me. I don’t know if I will ever get over it.
Pretty much every time I try something different or do something in front of a live audience, I truly think they might throw peanuts at me.
I wasn’t looking to get into TV. My family was in the movie business, so I was never interested in that world.
Cooking for me is a way to wind down. It’s different from cooking on camera, where you have to do everything twice, for a wide shot and a close-up.
I had a very tough childhood. I came here from Italy in the ’70s and didn’t speak a word of English, so the kids at school tormented me. Truly, it was horrifying the names they called me, and the teachers never really did a thing to stop it.
Everything in moderation.
Attitudes toward food have completely changed.
Every time I think I have something under control, it changes and I don’t have it under control. I think it takes several years to get there. Jade is 19 months old, so right now I’m on alert all the time. And as a mom I think you’re constantly worrying about things.
My grandfather gave me inspiration to cook, and love food and flavors. My Aunt Raffie, gave me creativity and the inspiration to create new things. My mother inspires me to find simplicity in food.
I was so nervous to turn 40, but the last year and a half has been the most fun I have ever had.
I spent time at my grandfather Dino’s gourmet store where he brought in chefs from Naples to cook. I thought of them as rock stars.
My grandfather’s family used to own a pasta factory in Naples and they would go door-to-door selling their pasta. So his love of food came from his parents, which was then passed down to my mother and then again to me.
To a billion people around the world surviving on just a dollar a day, the question of what to eat tonight is more about life and death than about recipes. The struggle of poor people around the globe weighs heavily on me, especially now that I am a mother, which is why I work with Oxfam.