Is Giada Branching Out?
Thursday, March 29, 2007 | posted by Mike
It wasn't a huge surprise when Giada De Laurentiis signed on as a correspondent for the Today show. After all, they occasionally run food pieces, and her guest spots during the Torino Olympics showed off the fact that she was more than just a "TV chef."
I have to admit that I haven't been following Giada's appearances on the NBC morning show, mostly because I'm out the door shortly after they finish the first round of weather updates. Not being around for the "features" sections means that I didn't notice that Giada has been co-hosting the 9:00 hour this week with Natalie Morales.
Giada's hosting duties have come up in two blog posts over the past few days. One, at mediabistro.com, is a short mention of Giada attending an industry event and a comment that "[s]he's doing great!"
The other mention is from AllDay, the official blog from the Today show. It's a piece about putting together a piece with Giada about the illness and passing of her brother Dino, who died a few years back from cancer. It's a nice post, and there is a link to the video of the piece, so you can check that out if you didn't see it.
So, what's the deal with Giada branching out and doing a little non-food hosting? After all, this was the gal who never dreamed of being on television. But with Rachael Ray and Paula Deen hosting talk shows now, you have to think that the prospects for someone as engaging and telegenic as Giada would be pretty good.
Weekend Getaways is almost more of a travel show than a food show, so Giada has already gone down the road of non-food entertainment television before. But one has to wonder how far she'll take the whole thing. With her, it's always seemed like it's about the food, so I can't imagine that she'd go too far afield.
Personally, I'm holding out for a Mario Batali talk show, complete with obscure references to medieval literature and that goofy guy from Mario Eats Italy in the Ed McMahon role.
Labels: Giada De Laurentiis
