United We Stand, Divided We Fall

I have a confession to make. If you promise not to tell anyone, I’ll share it with you. There has been a rift in the Three; a difference of opinion among the Three Bay B Chicks that we may not be able to recover from. As much as I would like to believe that our friendship is strong and can withstand any challenge that comes our way, this topic may very well be our Achilles heel.

In light of our inability to reach an agreement, I submit my argument to the blogosphere today and allow our readers to decide.

Background:
I feel that my long-time friend, Kacey, has gone astray. Back in March, she wrote this statement on our blog, “I’m a loyal fan of Barefoot Contessa and have been known to try a recipe from Giada." Yes, friends, it is true. My dear, dear friend Kacey has turned to the darkside and used recipes from Giada de Laurentiis as a guide for Italian cooking. My heart breaks each time I am faced with this reality.

Like any compelling argument, I must outline the reasons for my belief that we should turn away from Giada's teachings. I have gathered the following facts and photographic evidence to aid our audience in reaching a conclusion.

Evidence:

1) Most of the food that Giada makes is not Italian. I queried the top 94 recipes from Giada available on foodnetwork.com. Here are the first five recipes that came up: Couscous Cakes, Beer-Battered Apple and Onion Rings, Corn and Black Bean Salad with Basil-Lime Vinaigrette, Hibiscus Tea with Vodka and Citrus, and Nonna Luna’s Rice. My fellow bloggers, just because something has basil in it, does not mean that it is Italian. Case in point: Thai food uses basil too.

2) When you Google Giada’s name, you will find an equal number of sites dedicated to Giada’s food as to her cleavage. In other words, enough people in the world have queried the words breasts and cleavage as they relate to Giada that both terms come up in the drop-down menu on Google. This begs the question, “why the low cut shirts?” Perhaps the viewing public should be focusing on Giada's knife skills, rather than her… other assets.

3) I recently sought out advice for this situation from my perpetually level-headed friend, Thuy. She listened, as a good friend does, and made no judgments. However, I would like to point out that after our conversation, Thuy sent me the below photos, which were accompanied by the quote, “In her crusade to show the world how much enjoyment can be derived from Italian cooking, De Laurentiis goes through a lot of tomatoes.”

Rather than belabor my argument, I think it is best to end my post on a high note. If you are in the market for a resource that teaches you about actual Italian food and cooking techniques, I would highly recommend the following: Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, Cooking By Hand, Trattoria Cooking, and The Silver Spoon.

After all, don’t you think that an Italian cooking icon should look more like this:

Rather than like this:

I leave this critical decision in your hands.

-Francesca