Giada de Laurentis is one of the most renowned Italian American chefs who wrote various cookery books and hosted different food preparation shows on television. Presently she is hosting some of the famous television cookery programs such as Weekend Getaways, Everyday Italian, Giada’s Weekend Getaways, Giada at Home and Giada in Paradise.

Career

Giada was born in Rome, Italy in 1970 and at the age of seven moved to southern California with her family. Being the granddaughter of the popular personality and film producer Dino de Laurentiis, she belonged from the family who had entertainment business, but she never had the interest to be the part of the family business. Her obsession for food was sparked as a child as she learned to prepare different and famous family recipes for frequent family gatherings. Subsequently, she acquired a social anthropology degree after attending UCLA. Her culinary career actually started and got recognized when she attended LeCordon Bleu situated in Paris, with an ambition of making herself as popular as a pastry chef. With her intention to work in some of the famous restaurants, she returned back to Los Angeles. After returning to Los Angeles she worked in the several restaurants including Wolfgang Puck’s Spago. Soon after working and showing her talent in different restaurants, she started up a catering company named GDL Foods. Later, Giada started to work as a food stylist.

Achievements

The historic day in Giada’s career came in 2002 when Food Network noticed her styling piece in the journal called Food & Wine. She hosted her own television food show, "Everyday Italian" in 2003. Thereafter, she never looked back and kept on moving. Soon,Giada teamed up with Mario Batali in 2004 to hostanother TV special show named as An Italian Christmas with Mario and Giada. Adding to this, other shows that she hosted were Giada at Home and Giada’s Weekend Getaways. Apart from all these, her first cookbook was published named, Everyday Italian: 125 Simple and Delicious Recipes¸ in 2005. Presently, Giada owns four products: Balsamic Vinegar, Extra-virgin Olive Oil, Sea Salt with Fresh Lemon Zest and Tuscan Herb Mix.

Personal Life

Today Giada is one of the well known personalities in culinary industry and happily married to fashion designer Todd Thompson in 2003. She also has a daughter named Jade Marie De Laurentiis Thompson, born in March 29, 2008. Giada’s work, books and shows have always impressed and inspired people to taste and make Italian food right at home. This pretty women has managed to steal millions of American hearts with her easy to make cook books and made a significant position in culinary industry with a smooth pace.

Tavern on the Green – world famous restaurant is situated in Central Park on the Upper West Side of New York City. It was initially built in the year 1870 with a plan designed by Calvert Vaux. It was later turned into a restaurant after a renovation in 1934 by Robert Moses (New York City’s Commissioner of Parks). The restaurant’ lease was taken over by Warner LeRoy in 1974. It was again reopened after spending $10 million in redecoration in the year 1976. The day it was opened on August 31, 1976, the refreshed Tavern on the Green was in full swing to take New York by storm. Its eclectic menus, decorative whimsy along with all-around playfulness dazzled the city with avalanche of surprises. Tavern on the Green, soon became one of New York’s hottest dining destinations.

It took no time to become a prime location for celebrities who started to gather in the restaurant to make their presence for their professional reasons. The restaurant’s setting, size and radiant charm compelled many people to make it a hot destination for prestigious events. Still, it is New York’s most preferred location for organizing prestigious events, such as Broadway show openings, international film premieres, charity and political functions.

LeRoys run the Tavern successfully under his leadership till his death in 2001. It was then managed by his daughter, Jennifer Oz LeRoy. It became second highest-grossing independently-owned restaurant of the United States in 2007 with gross revenues of $38 million through more than 500,000 visitors.

Tavern on the Green remained first choice of many leading American celebrities for hosting their wedding receptions. Robert Olen Butler (Pulitzer Prize winning author) and Walter Hill (film director) are name of few famous celebrities who selected Tavern as their wedding venue. Tavern on the Green was also famous for frequent visits of prominent musicians, actors, writers and politicians. Actress Grace Kelly, New York City Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia is the name of few regular patrons.

Tavern’s beauty and charm can only be realized by a practical visit. Although, there are several dining rooms, but the most popular is the Crystal Room. It features windows where one can watch pleasant view of adjacent garden in Central Park. Its unique and lucrative royal appearance has attracted large number of people and is still magnetizing people.

Are you looking for some of the interesting facts about food or culinary? If your answer is yes, then here are some of the most amusing facts you must know. Share these facts and impress your friends.

Ice Cream

Ice cream is a Chinese food item. Marco Polo the famous explorer when returned to Italy, from China in the year 1295, he actually brought a well known recipe called “Milk Ice” among many other things. However, later Europeans substituted cream for the milk, and voila. Since then, ice cream has been a major hit.

Generally, the United States actually consumes on an average 48 pints of ice cream per person, per year. This is usually more than any other country in the world.

On an average, it takes 50 licks to polish off a single-scoop ice cream cone.

Pizza

The word pizza was originally spelt as “pitsa”.

Most pizza is ordered during the weather forecast or TV programs. Adding to this, the delivery folks also report that women, perhaps not surprisingly, are better tippers!

Generally, Americans consume or eat almost 350 slices of pizza each second.

Chilies

The color of a chili is no indication of its spiciness, but what matters is its size. Generally, it is important to note that the smaller the chilie pepper, the hotter it is.

Near about 140 varieties of chilies peppers are alone grown in Mexico alone.

Chilies play a very important role in making foods safer. They help in reducing the harmful bacteria on foods.

Potato

The potato is one of the most important non-cereal crops in the world, and considered as the fourth most important crop overall.

Irish were the first to eat potato. They were first introduced to Britain and Ireland in the late 1500s. It didn’t get popular immediately; many people actually held potato responsible for diseases as it was not talked about in the Bible.

Chips made of potato were first invented by a North American Indian named as George Crum

In the United States, if we compare the price between a pound of potato chips and potato, generally prices of potato chips is almost two hundred times extra than potatoes.

Miscellaneous

The flavor that is commonly associated with bubble gum all across the world is a mixture of wintergreen, vanilla and cassia, a form of cinnamon.

Cheddar is the most consumed and widely purchased cheese in the world.

Research shows that dark chocolate very similar to the red wine actually contains considerable amounts of flavonoid phenolics which in turn may be very helpful in lowering the risk of heart disease.

Today these foods are so common that it is really hard to imagine life without it. However, when these interesting facts were first brought into notice, it was considered as a myth, but slowly it turns out to be real. This list is just to give you an idea about some of the most important trivia that is related to about food and culinary items.

There are many interesting tidbits about food. Let us read some important, informational, fun facts about the food we commonly eat.

Coffee:

The rarest coffee is found in Indonesia and is called as Kopi Luwak. It costs $300 for a pound.

To prepare one pound roasted coffee, it takes about 20,000 coffee cherries.

Tomatoes:

On average every year each American consumes 22 pounds tomatoes.

Over half of the total tomato consumption is Tomato ketchup and sauce.

Rice:

There are more than 15,000 rice varieties present all over the world.

Cabbage:

The entire cabbage has 91 percent water content in it.

Milk:

On an average an American drinks 25 gallons milk in a year.

88 percent of the milk constitutes water whereas just 12 percent of it has a food value.

A family of four people in America consumes around 6000 pounds of food per year.

Bananas:

A banana is considered to be a great body builder. It helps in tissue building. A single banana if consumed each day will provide better health and in turn save a lot of money.

Never keep them in refrigerator.

Green bananas: cook and eat it has raw starch like potatoes.

Partially yellow bananas: cook as a dessert or as a vegetable.

Yellow banana: eat raw, can get digested now.

Yellow banana having brown freckles: best time to eat. Highest nutrition and can be digested by people with weak digestion.

Brown with yellow freckles: can’t be eaten raw. Can use in banana and bread recipes.

Miscellaneous:

In the year 1977, Americans consumed way more than 7.5 billion quarts popcorn.

Fifty gallons maple sap produces a single gallon maple sugar.

Do you know what Hushpuppies are? They are made up of small pieces of cornmeal batter that are fried and are mostly used in southern traditions. Years ago, hungry dogs were fed with fried batter, after the pieces finished the owner use to stop the dogs calling "Hush, puppies" and this is how they got their name.

Every day a bird consumes food weighing half the weight of its body. Imagine a 50 pound weighing child eating 25 pounds food daily!

In the US, farmers use about 1.5 billion pounds pesticides and half of it is in the food they eat, while just one percent of food shipment is tested. In fact, even the apple growers use around 24 types of pesticides on apples. Imagine the intake of pesticide we take each day.

Now, aren’t these facts interesting?