Giada Di Laurentiis Transcript
Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everyone. You are listening to Radio Cherry Bombe, and I'm your host, Kerry Diamond, coming to you from Newsstand Studios at Rockefeller Center in the heart of New York City. I'm the founder and editor of Cherry Bombe Magazine, and each week, I talk to the most interesting women and culinary creatives in and around the world of food.
We have got a great episode for you today. Our guest is the one and only Giada De Laurentiis. So many of you know and love Giada from her shows on the Food Network, her cookbooks, her videos, her Giadzy website and shop, you name it. Giada is such a star. I was so excited to meet her and interview her for the first time. She was warm and wonderful, and I could have talked to her for hours. And guess what else? This is our 500th episode, oh my gosh, I cannot believe it. I did not host all 500 by myself, I need to point that out. I know a lot of you have been with us on this entire journey, and I just want to say thank you. Doing the show has been an absolute career and life highlight. I've had the pleasure of meeting hundreds of incredible people who have shared their stories and their wisdom with all of us. I feel like a better person because of all I've learned from them over the years. I'm so honored Giada could join us for this Cherry Bombe milestone. Here's to the next 500.
Today's show is supported by The Republic of Tea and its new collection of premium dessert teas. Theo and Thea, you might not know this about me, but I love tea. I start and end my day with tea, and I love a little midday sip, herbal, green, black, even fresh herb tisanes. I've often thought it would be amazing to go to tea school and learn even more about this beautiful beverage. I don't know if there's even tea school, I'm guessing there is. But until I find out, I'm happy to enjoy the most interesting teas around that includes Theo & Thea from The Republic of Tea. Theo & Thea is dessert reimagined and the most indulgent tea yet from the Republic of Tea. The four Theo & Thea flavors are inspired by classic nostalgic desserts: caramel coconut, bananas foster, blood orange spice, and my favorite mint chip creme. The teas contain two sustainably sourced superfoods that have been used from millennia to lift one's spirits, premium tea and cacao. The cacao delivers the theobromine while the tea leaves supply L-theanine. Each flavor can be steeped and enjoyed, warm or poured over ice. And of course, you can use a splash of your favorite milk for a flavorful tea latte. Shop, explore, and learn more at republicoftea.com. Discover hundreds of great tasting teas you can feel good about.
A little Cherry Bombe housekeeping. This Saturday, November 11th is our Cooks and Books Festival at Ace Hotel Brooklyn. We have great talks and panels and demos with lots of your favorite people. Hetty Lui McKinnon, ZoëBakes, Clancy Miller, Dr. Jessica B. Harris, Sohla El-Waylly, Samantha Seneviratne, Peter Som, and so many others. Tickets for everything are $20. We wanted to keep the ticket price as low as we could, so lots of you can join us. Check out the lineup and the schedule and snag your tickets at cherrybombe.com. If you'd like to make a weekend of it and stay at Ace Hotel Brooklyn, use code CHERRYB for 15% off when booking at acehotel.com. I hope to see you this Saturday.
Now let's check in with Giada. Giada De Laurentiis, welcome to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Giada De Laurentiis:
Yeah, thank you. So exciting.
Kerry Diamond:
First thing we're going to talk about is not a new project, but a big project you have going on right now, and I'm going to make you pronounce it. Giadzy?
Giada De Laurentiis:
Giadzy.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, I said it right.
Giada De Laurentiis:
Yes, so Giadzy was my nickname, in my twenties actually. My friends gave me that name, not really my family. And when I was just starting this out and not really thinking it would be a business, but just a way for me to connect with fans because the way that I did my work on Food Network was so far out. I mean, I would shoot Christmas in May for the following year, and I wanted to wait when social media became so popular to actually have a conversation with people and in a more timely way and things that were on my mind that I wouldn't necessarily put on a cooking show, that didn't really work in that format. So I thought, I don't want it to be Giada, but I want it to really relate back to me and be unique. And I heard that Z is a big thing when you're coming up with names and I thought, oh, I'll just use my nickname, Giadzy.
Kerry Diamond:
Giadzy is many things today. Today, it's a whole platform.
Giada De Laurentiis:
Today it's a whole platform, yes, and we monetize it and we have a pantry arm.
Kerry Diamond:
We have a lot of entrepreneurs. Tell them what you mean when you say we monetize it.
Giada De Laurentiis:
Oh, we monetize it in the sense that we make money on it. It's not just a little pet project, which is what it was for a very long time, which is with a lot of entrepreneurs, especially women, is that we don't think of monetizing. We just think of an outlet that is creative that we can somehow feel like we're touching people. I think that's what most of us do.
Kerry Diamond:
Cherry Bombe was that.
Giada De Laurentiis:
Exactly. And it's just a different way to communicate. But in the last four years, we started figuring out that it could be a business, and it's been a journey and so we have different arms to the business. We have a pantry business where we sell and we import all of the products from Italy that I curate. Some of them are friends and family, and others of them now have expanded. All clean products, and we come up with recipes and tell stories about the purveyors and their families and the areas and really teach people about products and how they're made and who's making them.
Kerry Diamond:
You have a great product selection.
Giada De Laurentiis:
Yeah, so it's really.
Kerry Diamond:
It's not just your own private label things, so it's others.
Giada De Laurentiis:
No, I just started the private label. I mean, pasta's the only thing right now I have. I just, just started it.
Kerry Diamond:
I went looking for the Giada pasta sauce, and that doesn't exist yet.
Giada De Laurentiis:
We do not have that yet.
Kerry Diamond:
But I hope it's coming.
Giada De Laurentiis:
I will tell you, it's very difficult when you're making it in Italy. No wonder everybody makes it in the US because it's really, really, really hard. They just don't have the same equipment, they don't have the same setup. There's a lot of logistical issues coming into the country, so we'll get there, but it has been taken a little longer than I had hoped.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's talk about the pasta.
Giada De Laurentiis:
Yeah, okay.
Kerry Diamond:
You graciously sent me some of the pasta, including a bucatini that made me very excited. You've got so many recipes. I can't wait to jump into some of the recipes you have.
Giada De Laurentiis:
Yeah. One of the questions that people have asked me over the years is with Giadzy is, how's it different than an Eataly? Eataly has become, I mean, really, really popular, which is wonderful to see. And I think the difference for me and what I wanted to always do is to really teach people about the ingredients. So I wanted to give them a little history on it, where it comes from, what it is and what they should be using, a choice of the things you can use and also the recipes to go with them. I think that people don't realize in Italy we have multiple different olive oils.
We don't just have one olive oil that we use for cooking, for finishing for everything. We have many different olive oils, and so I wanted to teach people, this is what you do with this one. This is what you do with that one, and this is why you do it, and this is where it comes from and this is the olive and this is why it tastes like this. So I think the information and really connecting to the place, the origin and the usage is something that is missing in the marketplace.
Kerry Diamond:
Now, you clearly knew more about pasta than the average human being. What did you learn about pasta in this process?
Giada De Laurentiis:
I did know a lot because my grandfather's family made pasta before World War II, but in a different way than the commercial. What I didn't know was how different each region really is in the process of making pasta now that it is a little bit more commercialized than it used to be. And what artisanal pasta really means. These a hundred-year-old dies that a lot of these places use, they can't mass produce.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell folks what a die is.
Giada De Laurentiis:
So a die is where you push the dough out of that creates the shape of the pasta, and the materials that you use and the speed at which the dough comes out and the texture of the dough, how it gets pushed out. The bronze dies create a very rough texture, and that rough texture allows the sauce to stick to the pasta. When you don't use a bronze die, you use for instance plastic, which is much, I mean, you can mass produce with plastic, which very difficult to do with bronze. You get a very smooth noodle. Once people start paying attention, they can see the difference. The smooth noodle, well, the sauce slides right off of it, which is why sometimes you see a pool of sauce and the pasta on top because nothing sticks to it. So texture is a big thing.
And in the ingredients that they use to make it is really big. Sourcing semolina flour, it can be a difficult process. And for the pasta that we're using from Abruzzo, it is organic semolina flour that they grow in Abruzzo because Abruzzo is a state that is the least populated of any state in Italy. So a lot of farmland is still there, and you can source it and you can actually trace it, which is a lot of times impossible to do anymore. And I think it really makes a difference in our health.
Kerry Diamond:
How has this been for you, exercising a different part of your brain?
Giada De Laurentiis:
Difficult. Really, really hard. I didn't go to business school. I'm more of a creative than I am the business side of things. And so I have felt very, at times, I've been surprised that I'm not as dumb as I thought I was. I know, and it sounds silly, but I think that us ladies-
Kerry Diamond:
I can relate.
Giada De Laurentiis:
Somehow we get this thought that somehow the guys can do it better. They're just more inclined mathematically and business wise, they know or.
Kerry Diamond:
Someone else can do it better.
Giada De Laurentiis:
Yes, somebody else can do it for us. And I don't know where it comes from. I can't really say. I can just say that it's an insecurity, and I think it's definitely tapped into many of my insecurities and it was really hard for a while. But I think that pushing through it has been the best thing that I have ever done. I think it's really important to do new things, the things you're scared of as we get older. Because as we get older, we want to retreat, and I think that it's important for our self-esteem and for our brains to really push ourselves forward.
Kerry Diamond:
That is great advice. You've also got travel on there. You've got a lot of fun stuff. I really think people should go check out the website, there is a lot more to explore.
Giada De Laurentiis:
Which I think most people think, well, it's her-
Kerry Diamond:
It's you.
Giada De Laurentiis:
It's me, and that's what I do for a living, so of course that's what it's going to be. But I'm trying to really give people that 360 experience of Italy so it has to go beyond just recipes. I have to give you the tools, I have to give you beyond just learning how to make a dish, I have to give you the ingredients. So we have kits so that I have the kit with the ingredients and a video, all of it in one so that you really feel empowered. I also have a travel guides. We do a lot of history on different things on the pasta, on something like panettone, which is very big to the Italian culture, especially the holidays.
Kerry Diamond:
We're going to talk about.
Giada De Laurentiis:
A lot of history, a lot of delving into families and the generational, how they produce over time, how they treat the land, why do you want to explore this area? What is specifically special about going here? What pasta is from what region, so that you can start to connect the dots and really feel connected to Italy.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's talk about the holiday star you mentioned, and I never feel like I'm saying it right, panettone.
Giada De Laurentiis:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. What is pannetone and why is it having a moment?
Giada De Laurentiis:
Pannetone is the hallmark for us at Christmastime. That and the Feast of the Seven Fish, it is the gift that we all give. Italians give it to all family and friends, it isn't Christmas without it. I think that it's having a moment, well, first of all, a lot of people are making it, right? And there's a lot more artisanal people in the game. There didn't used to be. It used to be the big companies, the Peruginas of the world. I just think it was a little stale. I think people thought, especially in America, it's similar to a fruitcake, and there isn't the greatest sexiest connotation to an American fruitcake. So over time, I think that a lot of us have highlighted it and there are a lot more artisanal people playing in it.
And there's also great pannetone producers in America making really phenomenal, Marc Vetri being one of them that makes really phenomenal pannetone, and I think that has clicked in people's minds, and there's a lot of variety out there as well. And the three that I grew up on were the fior d'albicocca, so apricot, which is made a little bit differently in the shape, and it has fresh apricot jam on it, which for us is a traditional breakfast item. Chocolate, because I'm a huge chocolate fanatic. And then the traditional with the candied orange and the raisins. It is moist, it is very buttery. It is dome shaped. So much like our duomos, it has a lot of historical and religious backgrounds to it. It's decadent. It's really, really decadent. And the best part is the next day French toast with it, which is what we always have done. You could also do a zuccotto, which is an Italian dessert, but a lot of us just toast it and have it for breakfast.
Kerry Diamond:
Go back to the apricot one. So you said there's jam on it or in it? How does that work?
Giada De Laurentiis:
There's jam on top of it, so to say.
Kerry Diamond:
And you sell it that way?
Giada De Laurentiis:
We do sell it that way, yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. Is it like a glaze?
Giada De Laurentiis:
No, it's an actual jam on top, and actually I will tell you, it's the number one seller, which is really odd to me. I would think that people would buy classic or chocolate. They do not, they buy apricot. And I think because it is not readily available everywhere and not everybody makes it.
Kerry Diamond:
And there's fresh apricot in it.
Giada De Laurentiis:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay, not dried.
Giada De Laurentiis:
Uh-uh.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, it sounds so good.
Giada De Laurentiis:
It's really lovely.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. I can't wait.
Giada De Laurentiis:
It's really, really lovely.
Kerry Diamond:
So you can do a French toast with it, classic French toast, dredge it and egg and fry it up in some butter.
Giada De Laurentiis:
Yep. You can do classic French toast with it. I mean, I just like it toasted.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay.
Giada De Laurentiis:
We put a little extra butter on it and sometimes jam, which is not the greatest for your health but.
Kerry Diamond:
Holiday.
Giada De Laurentiis:
During the holidays, I feel like everything goes out the window but yes.
Kerry Diamond:
It's a holiday treat.
Giada De Laurentiis:
The classic has a little sugar on top, and as a kid, I used to pull all the sugar. It's like a brioche really. It's really what it is. It's very similar to that.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. I'm very excited. I never thought about toasting it. So if you'd go the French toast route, what would you top it with?
Giada De Laurentiis:
Well, we top it at my house with Nutella, with chocolate hazelnut, yeah. A maple syrup is totally fine. Honey is lovely. And Italian, a lovely floral honey is really lovely. And sometimes it's just good on its own with powdered sugar. Nothing else.
Kerry Diamond:
Can you do a bread pudding with it?
Giada De Laurentiis:
Oh, yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay.
Giada De Laurentiis:
Oh, for sure.
Kerry Diamond:
I love this. You've changed my whole outlook on panettone.
Giada De Laurentiis:
No, no, there's so many. I use it sometimes as croutons. A lot of times during the holiday, I'll make a big salad and then I'll use that to toast and put the crouton and just use it as croutons because they're slightly sweet. It's like making brioche croutons. It's not really that much different. And so I use it that way. What else do we use it on? A trifle. I mean.
Kerry Diamond:
Lots of things, folks.
Giada De Laurentiis:
Think about how you would use bread.
Kerry Diamond:
Or a pound cake.
Giada De Laurentiis:
Or pound cake. It's all the same. It's really the same thing.
Kerry Diamond:
I love it. I can't wait to try it.
Giada De Laurentiis:
It's similar though.
Kerry Diamond:
You sent me that too, so thank you. I was very, very kind and very generous of you.
Giada De Laurentiis:
Share it because it's a lot and you can freeze it.
Kerry Diamond:
Don't I keep them for myself?
Giada De Laurentiis:
I tell people all the time, you can freeze it. So I cut it in wedges, I freeze it, and then I take out when I need it and just warm it in the oven at about 250. It'll just warm through.
Kerry Diamond:
So if you are super intrigued folks that you can get this on giadzy.com, let's take a quick break and we'll be right back.
Today's show is also supported by OpenTable. OpenTable is partnering with us for our Cherry Bombe dinner series, Sit With Us, which highlights amazing female chefs and restaurateurs in the Cherry Bombe network. Up next is our Sit With Us dinner at Chef Camille Becerra's As You Are, the restaurant at Ace Hotel Brooklyn. That dinner is taking place Saturday, November 11th. So if you're coming to our Cooks and Books Festival, join us for dinner. Come by yourself and sit with us or come with some friends. Tickets are available exclusively on OpenTable. Head to cherrybombe.com to learn more. Now, back to Giada.
People might not realize this, but you wanted to be a pastry chef once upon a time.
Giada De Laurentiis:
Oh, yeah. I love pastries. That's still my, so I went to culinary school in Paris and I wanted to-
Kerry Diamond:
The famous Le Cordon Bleu.
Giada De Laurentiis:
Le Cordon Bleu, and I wanted to just do pastries. I mean, that is the reason that I went to Paris. Otherwise, I guess I could have gone to culinary school in America or somewhere else. I love my sweets to this day. I do it as my vice, and that is what I've always told. Take it down a notch on the sweets. But yeah, so I wanted to do that. And coming back to Los Angeles, I realized if I want to live here, that's not going to be able to be my route.
Kerry Diamond:
It was very funny, I heard you say that on another podcast. People might not realize because LA is in the midst of such a baked good boom that back then that wasn't the case.
Giada De Laurentiis:
We're talking almost 30 years ago. I mean, I hate to say it myself, but it was a long time ago and food just wasn't what it is today, nowhere. I mean, maybe New York City did had a real great, it did, it had a great food culture, but it did not trickle down to the West Coast. We just didn't.
Kerry Diamond:
L.A. had that reputation of people just don't eat.
Giada De Laurentiis:
Don't eat, it's Hollywood.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah.
Giada De Laurentiis:
They don't eat. So I just decided, okay, that's just not going to be my foray. So when I started doing Food Network, one of the things they said is, "Yeah, you don't need to have any desserts on your show. We don't need desserts, nobody likes Italian desserts." And I thought, really? Well, I have to have dessert because to me, it isn't a meal that I want to share with my friends if there isn't a sweet something at the end. It doesn't have to be a big deal. It can be the act four, which is super short, but there has to be something, you have to leave on a sweet note. It was a battle at first. And eventually my sweets, I mean, in Vegas, I'm known for my lemon ricotta cookies. My lemon spaghetti, but also my lemon ricotta cookies.
Kerry Diamond:
This is your restaurant in Vegas at the Cromwell.
Giada De Laurentiis:
We sell a million of them. And so I have now become known for a dessert, which was always the goal.
Kerry Diamond:
Can people buy them to go or they buy them as a dessert that comes out Plated?
Giada De Laurentiis:
Yeah, it comes out plated. You can buy them to go at Pronto, which is the quick serve at Caesar's Palace. But we don't ship them yet.
Kerry Diamond:
Got it.
Giada De Laurentiis:
We don't do that yet, no.
Kerry Diamond:
Is the recipe online?
Giada De Laurentiis:
Oh, yeah. It's been there a long time.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. So if you're not going to Vegas, you can make your own. But let's go back a little bit because you have such a fascinating origin story, and I think it's so inspiring, especially to the women in the Cherry Bombe community and all the folks in the Cherry Bombe community. You were born into a very famous film family, not even just Hollywood global film. Want to tell folks a little bit about your grandfather?
Giada De Laurentiis:
So my grandfather, Dino De Laurentiis, so he was born in Naples. His family had a pasta factory before World War II. He never went to college, went to school, I think sixth grade was the max. And after the war, his family lost everything. And he was one of seven kids and he really wanted to be an actor. What are you going to do? So he packed up and moved from Naples to Rome with no money and tried to be an actor, realized he was too short. He was more petite than I am, and in those days you had to be tall and just think like.
Kerry Diamond:
John Wayne.
Giada De Laurentiis:
John Wayne.
Kerry Diamond:
Clark Gable, those guys.
Giada De Laurentiis:
Correct. So he was a really great salesman having learned from his family how to sell pasta and sauces when he was a kid. He was a great salesman. So he started just teaming up with people who wrote great scripts and he started producing movies. He also married my grandmother who was Ms. Rome at the time so they created empire together and he made over 600 movies in 60 years. He moved to the States with all of us, because Italian families stick together, we follow the patriarch. So we all moved. I was seven when we moved and in the seventies, and he started making movies in the US, “King Kong,” “Conan the Barbarian,” all of these movies.
Kerry Diamond:
Some of the most famous movies in the '70s.
Giada De Laurentiis:
Correct, and some really artsy movies with David Lynch and just really cool stuff. And so they were both of them very well known, especially in Europe. And then eventually became very well known in the States, because he helped the careers of people like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jodie Foster, there were so many actors and Brooke Shields, even Drew Barrymore. I mean a lot of them started with him. And so he became this powerhouse.
Kerry Diamond:
From what I know about you and have researched, it seems like this created an early existential crisis for you because you didn't necessarily want to get into the family business.
Giada De Laurentiis:
Correct. For my grandfather, Italian traditional families, women, you can dabble, but really your role is to get married and have kids.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. You've said publicly there weren't many expectations for you.
Giada De Laurentiis:
No, which was a good thing in a way. I mean, we can look at it both ways, but because there weren't a lot of expectations, I was allowed room to see what it was I wanted to do without anybody forcing me into a corner, which they did do with my brother, with many of the guys in the family, they were forced to do things. Not that they didn't want to be in the movie business, but if they didn't, it wasn't an option. I did work on some movies, it was required and I did it. I realized.
Kerry Diamond:
And you even tried acting, right?
Giada De Laurentiis:
Yes, I did every department basically on my aunt and my grandfather's movies, I realized this is not for me. And so I went to college. I was the first to go to college in my family, and then I went to culinary school. They thought I was nuts, but they thought, all right, let her dabble, do her thing and then she'll come back and then it'll all be done.
Kerry Diamond:
You said that your grandfather said, this was about you working in a restaurant. "You're out of your mind. You won't be able to physically handle it. All of these men will eat you up."
Giada De Laurentiis:
Yeah, which I think first of all, it's a different time. And secondly, he wasn't entirely wrong. It was really hard. It was really hard. And kitchen work is manual labor. I don't think people to this day realize that it is really hard work. And yes, I was petite.
Kerry Diamond:
And harassment did exist, and still does. I mean, we're not entirely out of the woods, but back then.
Giada De Laurentiis:
But at that time, there was nowhere to go, there was no one to talk to. You just had to suck it up if you wanted to be in this business. And so he wasn't wrong. And I think he was just saying it out of worry that something would happen. And then it's a fun journey from the kitchen to then doing food styling.
Kerry Diamond:
You're doing food styling, you did an article for Food & Wine.
Giada De Laurentiis:
After 9/11, I did an article, Food & Wine. My grandfather was getting a lifetime achievement award at the Oscars. I had done assisting jobs with some of the food stylists, and that is why they called me to do that. They got a bunch of chefs together and their families and they wanted just different versions. And so I did the Italian feel, and super excited to do it, my grandfather did it. I don't know that he was like, what the hell are we doing? But he did it. And from there, Food Network called and little by little.
Kerry Diamond:
Didn't you say no the first time?
Giada De Laurentiis:
I said no for six months because I had tried acting for my family and I realized that is not my strong suit. And by the way, that was when Food Network had just started. It was mostly Emeril, Bobby Flay, it was all of these male chefs, and I thought, I don't belong there. I just don't.
Kerry Diamond:
It's your 20th anniversary year on Food Network. Major.
Giada De Laurentiis:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
So you finally do say yes. How was that first year or the first season?
Giada De Laurentiis:
I lost 10 pounds and you saw how little I am. So yeah, it was awful. It was really, really bad. My hair was falling out, I was so stressed out.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, Giada.
Giada De Laurentiis:
Because I think I pushed myself to a limit that I didn't. I felt incredibly overwhelmed. I had a hard time cooking facing the camera. They would constantly tell me, "Why is your left shoulder in the eye line of the camera? You need to open, open to the camera." And I'm like, "Oh God, this is really insane." And just explaining every step of what you're doing when you've never done it before. And I know this sounds maybe ridiculous nowadays because everybody's doing TikToks and everybody, but in those days that stuff didn't exist. I didn't know how to talk to the camera about what I was doing. I never had to, it was in my head.
Kerry Diamond:
You also said something funny that one of the notes they gave you was tell more family stories, talk about your family food, and you thought, I can't talk about my family. I can't tell their food secrets.
Giada De Laurentiis:
Yes, because that was one of the things my grandfather said to me. "You know you cannot share all of our secrets. They're ours. That's what makes us special. Do not ruin the family name with whatever it is that you're looking to do with this." Anytime you start something new that is unknown to people, it creates fear. So my grandfather was fearful. He felt I've worked my tail off my whole life to create a certain name for this family, she can't just go ahead and tear it down. And trust me, those thoughts were in, they're still today with me. I make choices based on what my grandfather would've thought. I think it's a balance in this life. And I think in the beginning people said to me, "Oh, it's because you come from a famous family. That's it." I'm like, I don't think people really know. Unless we talk about it, it's not like it's.
Kerry Diamond:
But so many people come to their projects with the weight of family expectations.
Giada De Laurentiis:
And what are we trying to prove, really? We're trying to prove it to our family. We spend our life proving to our family that we're worth it, I guess, and that we're worth being seen, I guess. I don't know.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, the Food Network eventually becomes the second family for you, and they stuck with you even though it was so hard in the beginning. Why do you think they stuck with you and didn't cancel your show or move on to someone else?
Giada De Laurentiis:
I think in those days, 20 years ago, we had more time to build an audience. It was a smaller network, and run by a newspaper family. I don't think anybody knew what we were doing to be honest. I think we were just all trying to figure out the next steps together, and so that's why I got the chance.
Kerry Diamond:
When do you feel like things finally clicked for you?
Giada De Laurentiis:
Second season of “Everyday Italian,” I think I started to get into a groove and feel comfortable. It was also about making sure I stayed in L.A. where my family was because they really wanted me to come to New York where they had studios. So it was getting comfortable with saying, "No, I have to do it this way, or I won't make it. It just won't feel authentic." That was always my thing. I has to feel authentic. The storytelling has to feel authentic. I have to have my family here. I can't just hire family that doesn't work that way. I want to be my own city and my brother over the summer, my brother has passed now, but over that summer, between season one and season two, he followed me with a camera very much like a reality show and that really helped me get comfortable. And to this day, I look at a camera and I think of my brother so it's pretty awesome.
Kerry Diamond:
And he was so young for you to have lost him.
Giada De Laurentiis:
Yeah, he died of melanoma at 30.
Kerry Diamond:
And that must've been hard to carry on with the show.
Giada De Laurentiis:
It was hard to carry on with anything, to be honest. But unfortunately life has to go on, so as much pain as we're in.
Kerry Diamond:
I'm so sorry. I know it was a long time ago.
Giada De Laurentiis:
It was. Yeah, but.
Kerry Diamond:
You have a beautiful daughter now.
Giada De Laurentiis:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Jade. I see her in your videos. I see her in different things. How involved is she?
Giada De Laurentiis:
She's been involved since she was a baby, because I feel like people saw me before having a child, then they saw me get pregnant, then they saw her. So I feel like it's an evolution and they've watched my life just evolve. So she's still part of it. She's not interested in food, not a lick. I mean, she made me a cake for my birthday, which she does every year because she knows I love it. But she's not interested. I mean.
Kerry Diamond:
She's a Nutella fan, I know that much.
Giada De Laurentiis:
She loves that. I mean, she likes to eat, she just doesn't want to be in the kitchen cooking.
Kerry Diamond:
You had a big moment when you realized you were fast approaching burnout in so many ways. You were worried about your health, you were worried about your mental health. You made a lot of changes, and it seems like you're in a better place these days.
Giada De Laurentiis:
I worked my tail off for a long time, and I think I burned my body out. When I told you about my first season, a lot of that continued in different forms, and I was tired. And I was told by my acupuncturist, really, you need to slow down. You're not going to hit the end line if you don't. If the goal is to do X, Y, and Z, you need to start thinking about better ways to manage your time.
Kerry Diamond:
It's a fascinating story. You tell the whole story and it's “Eat Better, Feel Better” book that came out a few years ago that I highly-
Giada De Laurentiis:
Yeah, it was a journey, a long one, 10-years journey.
Kerry Diamond:
That I highly recommend. There's a lot you wrote in that book. It's not just recipes, there's a lot about your story.
Giada De Laurentiis:
A lot of my health story, which a lot of us women, we kill ourselves.
Kerry Diamond:
Go, go, go.
Giada De Laurentiis:
Go, go, go, and then we hit a wall. Especially after you have a kid and all that stuff. Yeah. And I think that it was my reasoning for taking a step back from Food Network and really pursuing the entrepreneurial journey and other things that I was interested in that I just didn't have time for anymore and running out of days so.
Kerry Diamond:
I think people really relate to the story because you didn't want to give up everything that you had food wise. You had built this whole career on food, you had your Italian culture. So it really came down to, I think balance and moderation and things we just forget about sometimes.
Giada De Laurentiis:
And I think a lot of people told me, "Take dairy out," take all kinds of starches out, do this and do that. And I just thought, I can't live that way though. It's just not reality. I have to find a way that I can still eat these things, but in moderation. And that's hard for us. It's really, really hard. And I think when you travel a lot and work a lot, that balance becomes even harder. So it's figuring that journey out.
Kerry Diamond:
Giada, you are incredible.
Giada De Laurentiis:
Thank you so much for having me, appreciate that.
Kerry Diamond:
Thank you for everything you've done. You've shown the way to a lot of women in this industry and appreciate it.
Giada De Laurentiis:
I'm just excited of where we are today. Thanks for having me.
Kerry Diamond:
That's it for today's show, episode 500. That is one for the Cherry Bombe record books. Thank you again to all of our listeners, all of our guests over the years and our sponsors for making this show possible. A few more thank-yous. I know, this is like my Oscar speech, don't cue the music just yet. Thank you to the folks at Heritage Radio Network who gave us our start so many years ago. And big thanks to the folks at Rockefeller Center, which is home to Radio Cherry Bombe. And finally, Team Cherry Bombe, who truly makes all of this possible. And this is a good time to remind you if you are not a subscriber to our podcast, what are you waiting for? Subscribe to Radio Cherry Bomb via Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And thank you. Our theme song is by the band Tralala, Joseph Hazan is the studio engineer for Newsstand Studios. Our producer is Catherine Baker. Our associate producer is Jenna Sadhu, and our editorial assistant is Londyn Crenshaw. Thanks for listening, everybody. You are the Bombe.