Has anyone seen Giada De Laurentiis’ new show on Food Network, Giada in Paradise?

As far as I can tell from the listings it is a special only. So far she has been to Santorini, which is my ultimate dream trip and Capri, which is not too far behind! When we watch this show at my house, it must sound like we are watching sports. We make all the same noises that sports fans make when their team scores a point, falls down or takes a hit to the stomach with a flying ball. We love this show, but we also are tortured by it because we want to be there more than anything else! When Giada takes a bite of something delicious you hear groans from our couch, when she steps foot somewhere we’d like to be, you will often hear a “yes!” as she starts describing a dream spot. This show is really giving me the travel bug big time, which is a great motivational tool to get me fired up to continue with all my projects and find more!
Read the rest of this entry »

As everyone knows I love Anthony Bourdain. Sure he can sometimes be a little gruff and opinionated, but who isn’t? I respect him for the way he travels about the world with an open mind, sense of adventure and appetite for anything that hits a plate. To me, that is the be all – end all, the height of achievement, something I look to be doing in the future. Perhaps not on National TV as he does, but just for myself. Tony is not only an accomplished chef, the star of a travel TV show and a cookbook author; he is also a fiction writer as well! What can this man not do?

Often when watching his shows or sometimes just sitting on a beach wishing it could be that way forever, I dream of “going bamboo”. Just going off to some beautiful island somewhere, changing my name and falling off the grid. So I was not surprised that one of Tony’s fiction pieces is thus named .

So for all of us who dream about getting away and living the good life somewhere un-noticed, this book is for you…or is it?? You know with Tony at the helm, things are never what they seem!

My girl Rachael Ray has been getting a lot of flack lately, and I may get a lot of flack for writing this, but o’well, I am going to say it anyway! Seems that yet another talented, tough, hard working girl just got too famous for where some say she is supposed to be – she’s in the top of the cooking industry and she’s not even a real trained chef at that – blasphemy! Well I can admit that sometimes she is too hyper for my taste and perhaps she is a bit gruff and speaks her own language of abbreviations and short cuts which can annoy and confuse, but honestly, when I think about it, those personality quirks are outweighed by the many things I like about her.
Read the rest of this entry »

In honor of Rachael Ray and her easy way of cooking, it is only natural that this week’s Product Of The Week is her very first cookbook,
the cookbook she started while teaching people how to cook in grocery stores all around upstate New York. Check it out, then you can make your own opinions!