Does it help that Giada De Laurentiis was, as she says, born into the movie business? She seems as comfortable walking around and talking on stage with a head mic as if she had just walked into a friend’s kitchen.

Never mind that she was born in Rome and lives in LA. Her Kentucky audience likes this woman with her beautiful smile and her easy, laid-back manner. We are comfortable with her.

She invites audience members to come up on stage to help cook each of three pasta recipes. Squealing!!! Hand waving!! Big male voice from high up, way in the back, “How about me, Giada?” Laughter – and then Giada says “Okay, come on up.” So he bounces himself up onto the waist high stage while Giada turns away to look for the steps.

Rotini with Mushroom Cream Sauce

First things first: a big Giada hug for Matt – who says he does no cooking in everyday life, but loves creamy pasta sauces over chicken. Giada says, “You can make this pasta with mushroom cream sauce and add your chicken.”

Now comes a revelation about how to get non-cooks cooking: do all the prep work in advance, as the Sullivan University students have done for Giada’s demonstration.

With the prep work to jump start him, non-cook Matt starts cooking easily. Dumps handfuls of salt into the pasta water, empties the dry pasta into that already boiling water, upends the already chopped shallots into a sauté pan filmed with olive oil. He’s cooking!

So all we need at home to teach people to cook is two prep chefs! Who knew?

To be fair, now Matt graduates to actual chopping. He chops some already sliced button mushrooms so they become more finely chopped button mushrooms. He chops chives, using Giada’s specially designed mezzaluna knife.

And now I’m starting to wonder about that pasta…wouldn’t it be done and getting soggy by now, after perhaps 10 minutes in the boiling water? And where’s the sink? How would they plumb Rupp Arena’s center court? If there’s no drain, what happens to the pasta water on the stage?

Giada leaves Matt to continue cooking, asks Sullivan Culinary student Monica to watch over the pasta, and moves to the front of the stage to take audience questions (”AQ,” from here on.)

AQ: Which mushrooms are best?

GDL: Whatever you like: button, Portobello, shiitake — your choice.

AQ: How did you manage morning sickness when you were pregnant?

GDL: Bagels saved me, and I don’t usually like bagels. That, and I toughed it out.

AQ: I’m going to chef’s school in the spring. What advice do you have for me?

GDL: Look around, try everything, figure out what you like out of all of it. Congratulations.

AQ: My husband and I recently went to Italy, to Cinque Terre, and we had…an onion. Caramelized, I think, I don’t know…and my husband wants me to learn to make them.

So after a little ribbing about getting back to Cinque Terre to find out in person, and after some back and forth about the exact nature of the memorable onions (small, individual, appetizers on a platter with other appetizers), Dr. Giada diagnoses these Unforgettables as Cippolini onions. She prescribes a cooking method: blanch, peel, roast at 400 – 450 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes, or until golden and soft. Add Herbes de Provence; consider a bit of balsamic vinegar.

Back to the cooking now, to tease Matt – who takes it well — about slowing down the cooking so he can prolong his time upon the stage, holding off the next two dishes and the replacement audience member sous chefs. As she cooks, Giada explains The Secret of the Pasta Water: The glutens in the pasta water stick to the pasta and help the sauce and cheese stick to the pasta. She advises saving a cup of pasta water when draining the pasta, and, in this case, using about ¼ cup of the water to get the right consistency for the dish.

And suddenly, there’s pasta with mascarpone-mushroom-shallot sauce and grated Parmesan, topped with freshly chopped chives. Since the dish Matt was stirring never actually cooked, Giada uses the sauce the Sullivan University Culinary students made beforehand.

And so I learn another home cooking lesson: Have a correct version of the dish made up just in case the stove won’t get hot.

Now the money shot – Giada and Matt taste the Student version of the pasta, and say “hmMMMmmm.” Matt departs to a round of applause, carrying the bowl of finished pasta back into the stands to share with his wife.

AQ: I thank you for interesting me in cooking, and making it so I can do it. My husband thanks you. And my neighbors thank you. You made it look easy and if it’s easy for me it’s easy for anyone.

GDL: It IS easy. Thank you.

AQ: What’s your favorite thing to cook?

GDL: How old are you?

Caitlyn: Eleven.

GDL: And what’s YOUR favorite thing to cook?

Caitlyn: I want to cook with you.

Spaghetti with Beef, Smoked Almonds & Basil

And so onto the stage come Caitlyn and her mother Paula, to cook Spaghetti with Beef, Smoked Almonds, and Fresh Tomato Sauce. Giada says, “And my favorite thing to cook, to answer the question, is desserts. Anything chocolate. I love chocolate.”

Giada shows Caitlyn how to distribute herbs evenly over the fat slices of beef tenderloin: bring the hand high over the dish, dropping the herbs from that height onto the meat. Jamie Oliver has been known to do this with some shaking and posing and “styling.” For Caitlyn, the prep island was at about chest level, so getting the hand high above the plate would have required raising it above her head.

First Giada Aphorism, spoken when Caitlyn murmured that she “was not good at this.”

GDL: “There’s something about telling yourself you’re good at this that makes you become good at this.”

Applause!

Second Giada aphorism: “You have to tell the garlic what to do. Don’t let the garlic tell YOU what to do, Caitlyn.”

After a few reassurances and instructions to Caitlyn and Paula so they could keep things cooking, Giada comes back to the audience.

AQ: I’m getting married in April, and my fiancé and I are trying to figure out what to serve as the entrée. What do you suggest?

GDL: Are you meat eaters? What do you like?

Questioner: We’re kind of chicken and beef people.

GDL: Beef tenderloin with curry mayo is luscious. Beef is dressier for a big event.

AQ: I love cooking your recipe for ravioli with chocolate that you deep-fry. I can’t make them fast enough, somehow. Can I put them in the refrigerator? Should I cover them?

GDL: [Before they are cooked] Yes, put them in the refrigerator and cover them with a damp cloth.

AQ: What embarrassing moments have happened behind the scenes?

GDL: [Pauses, smiles, and tells a story in detail, something like this.] It was for the Today Show, my very first appearance, and my first big television cooking show, right after my first book came out. It was with Matt Lauer [audience laughter and a few claps.] I was so nervous, so excited. I had flown in from LA and with the time difference I was tired. They have people help with the prep – you have to get there so early. I did look at my prep, and then…the spots are pretty short, about four minutes. You don’t even know what’s happened and it’s over. I think I made grilled chicken with a couple of different toppings, easy things, food anyone can cook. So I’m doing the sauces and all of a sudden we are finishing and we are getting ready to taste, and I see Matt is able to cut his chicken with a fork. I’m thinking, if he’s cutting it with a fork, is it raw? Is it done?? All of a sudden, Matt runs to the back, the camera follows him, and he spits the chicken out and says, “Giada’s trying to poison me!” What had happened was that the prep chef had cooked the outside lightly, gotten those grill marks we all know how to make, but it was not cooked through. I’m thinking, “It’s over. I’m never going to have a life. I’m dead.” Literally, my mouth was like this: [shows wide open horrified "huh??"] I ran out so fast, no one could catch me. But then I got a call back. They said Matt loved it, thought it was the best segment ever. So you can come back from anything. That — happening live — was worse than anything that ever happened behind the scenes.

Right here is where I notice Monica from Sullivan Culinary carrying the steaming pot of pasta back stage, while Giada talks with Caitlyn about food she has “made” on the game “Cooking Mama.” Something about squid ink with spaghetti and hot dogs – probably not a Giada recipe.

I missed this during the first pasta cooking demo with Matt. Now I get that there is no sink on stage (no one has washed hands, I realize.) The pasta leaves the stage to get drained. Probably into a bucket?

And then Giada, Caitlyn, and Paula taste their finished spaghetti with beef and smoked almonds. Caitlyn wants hers cut.

GDL: Cut? No! You can’t cut pasta? Na na na na na na na I can’t hear that. SUCK! [Third Giada Aphorism coming up!] Part of the fun of spaghetti is that you can suck it up!

The fine looking spaghetti with good things leaves the stage with Caitlyn and Paula. Giada takes more questions.

AQ: Is Giada at Home set at your home?

GDL: It’s where I live about six months a year, while working on the show. It’s a set based on my kitchen. The view is my view. My husband put his foot down a long time ago. There are so many cameras and so much equipment that they take over. You need a place to get away. So no, it’s not my own home, but it’s like my home.

AQ: Do you ever cook with fruit wines, like pineapple or orange?

GDL: I have to make recipes that will work all across the country, so I tend to use more generic types of wine. I like to cook with limoncello – I make my own. Can you get limoncello in Kentucky?

Audience: Yes!

GDL: Good! People in Kentucky seem to know their alcohol. [Laughter] I encourage people to take my recipes and make them your own. And citrus? That’s one thing I’m constantly saying around the country: citrus brings all the flavors alive and truly wakes up your palate.

AQ: Depending on how you answer my question, I may have a follow-up question.

GDL: Okay.

AQ: How do you feel about answering my question while I come up there on the stage and cook with you?

GDL: Come on up!

AQ: [Once on stage] It’s about salt. Some of my relatives can’t eat salt. How do I cook well without it?

Giada then begins recruiting some more people to come cook with Mr. No Salt, asking someone from among the ten on stage to join her. The audience starts saying “Richie, Richie” – a chant heard a few times before in Rupp Arena – and former UK men’s basketball standout Richie Farmer, current Commissioner of Agriculture for the Commonwealth of Kentucky, semi-reluctantly stands up to help. There’s an answer to one of my pre-Giada questions: Richie and Becky Farmer constitute two of the 10 people who are sitting right on stage.

The audience is laughing, talking: Richie Farmer takes the limelight in Rupp Arena WITHOUT a basketball. The different lives of Rupp Arena commingle!

Uh-oh. Small problem. Richie Farmer doesn’t like Italian food. Becky Farmer doesn’t either. Richie says, “I played for Rick Pitino for a while so I had to learn to like it a little.”

Fusilli with Spicy Pesto

GDL: We’re making a pesto. I’m guessing Richie doesn’t know what pesto is.

[Richie nods, agreeing.]

GDL: We’re using arugula. Have you ever had arugula?

[Richie shakes his head. No.]

GDL: Did you say you’re the head of Agriculture?? When you say you’re the head of Agriculture, what does that mean? Do you actually go out to the farms?

RF: I help the people who do agriculture. I help the people who farm.

GDL: Well, what do you like to eat? Beef? Would you have liked the dish we just made?

RF: I like beef.

So Giada sets Richie and Mr. No Salt to work on the pesto: add arugula, walnuts, olive oil (LOTS), garlic, parmesan, lemon zest and jalapeño to a food processor, fit the lid on correctly, push the “On” button. Richie has a surprise: he DOES know that the heat in the jalapeño is concentrated in the seeds.

Giada takes more questions as the two men carry out her instructions about completing the pesto.

AQ: What inspired you to start cooking? [From two girls who are 12 and 13]

GDL: [Tells a story, shortened here] When you come from a large Italian family like mine, with lots of cooking going on, you start cooking at about age five. I think I got my passion from my grandfather. His passion and excitement about food is what inspired me. My family thought I was nuts. I was a couple years older than you when I decided that food would be my life. My family was in the movie business, and food was the last thing they wanted me to do. “Whaaaat??” They wanted me to go to college, and so I did, and then I went to culinary school.

Time to taste the pesto. Richie Farmer, Mr. No Salt, and Giada all take tastes. Giada says, “We didn’t add any salt. What does it need?”

Audience, loudly: “Salt!”

Mr. No Salt begins adding more flavors: lemon zest, more cheese, which includes salt. Pasta water, which includes salt.

The three taste again, and agree: It needs salt. In goes some salt. Process. Taste again. Giada, who is stirring the pesto into the cooked fusilli, says, “That’s better, but it could use more. Let’s taste the pesto the [Sullivan University Culinary] students prepared, and compare.”

Richie Farmer offers an aside, “I tell you, I’ve done a lot of things in this Arena – but never cooked.”

Giada demonstrates again that pasta water saves pasta dishes. After she stirs the pesto and cooked fusilli together, she says, “The pasta water has the natural starches from the pasta in it, and they loosen up the sauce.” Sure enough, on the big screen, one can see the fusilli and pesto seem to relax a little, glisten a bit more.

The taste comparisons yield a verdict: The student dish is spicier. Giada is diplomatic: “They’re both delicious – you all did a great job.” She looks at Richie, who has tasted carefully, but now is eating bite after bite after bite, nodding, saying, “It’s good.” Spouses join their men on stage, and then Richie Farmer recognizes his three sons in the audience. Giada calls them onto the stage for a taste.

The responses might map childhood taste buds. Mr. 13 Year Old says, “It’s okay.” Mr. 11 Year Old says, “I don’t like it.” Mr. 8 Year Old looks for a place to spit his bite out and says, eventually, to much laughing in the audience “It’s disgusting.”

Giada says, “Yes, it can be an acquired taste,” and turns, laughing, back to the audience for two final questions.

AQ: Should you put oil in the cooking water with pasta to keep the pasta moist?

GDL: [Tiny bristle] The pasta is already moist. The water keeps it moist. If you put oil in the pasta water when it’s cooking, when you drain it and put sauce on it, the sauce will sliiiiiide off. The only exception is lasagne. You put oil in that water to keep the lasagne sheets from sticking together. Don’t put oil in your pasta water.

AQ: How do you stay so fit?

GDL: Small portions. No matter how good anything is, you can’t eat all of it. I’d say an appetizer plate is correct for most people. And I move. I move all day. I work out. You gotta get up and move. Ride horses – do anything you like, but just move.

And that’s all, says Brigitte Nguyen.

Thank you, Giada. Kentucky loved it all – all of us, that is, with the possible exception of those Kentuckians under driving age.

Blogged by: Rona Roberts
Photography by: Paul Hooper