Food Network Star Giada De Laurentiis Recalls Awful Experience With Mario Batali first appeared on Parade on Aug 14, 2025 This story was originally reported by Parade on Aug 14, 2025, where it first appeared. Despite calls to action, the singer's tour wasn't able to sell the 20,000 tickets they needed.

The Food Network star, 54, recently appeared on Samah Dada’s YouTube show, “On the Menu,” and recalled asking now-disgraced chef Mario Batali to write the foreword for her 2005 cookbook, “Everyday Italian.” However, Batali’s comments in the book were far from kind.

When Giada De Laurentiis published her first cookbook Everyday Italian, in 2005, she was ecstatic to have lined up a foreword from celebrity chef Mario Batali, who was already a "legend in the Italian space." But the submission was not what the former Food Network host expected.