Giada DeLaurentiis: The Secret Ingredient is Joy

How does your stomach feel? I don't think it matters if you ate a light meal or a heavy meal. You're probably not going to feel well. If we can be laughing and having fun and enjoying the people that were around while we're eating, we will feel better.

That piece of the longevity piece is just as important as the food you're putting on the table. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another exciting episode of Macon Plodin. Today, I have a guest that I'm going to open up to because she has no idea how she has personally changed my life. I'm talking about food network kitchens to building lifestyle empires. She has redefined what it means to be a modern culinary force.

She's a bestselling author, an Emmy award winner and a true entrepreneur. Please join me and welcome me to Visionary the Authentic. The Jada. Delirentous. Jada.

You don't need to. I'm great. How are you? Thanks for having me. Thank you for being here and just thank you for being present and the person that you are.

So I'm going to let you know something that you don't know that I'm probably going to get in trouble for. I'll just have to deal with it because you know Robert Irvine is my best friend. Yes, but I didn't start watching food network or Robert Irvine until you. Like you are the person that brought me into the food culture. And it was simple.

It was because when your presence was amazing.

But to it was like you were storytelling and teaching me personally like how to make really cool dishes. And I got to appreciate all the different things that you brought to the table. So Jada, thank you more than you know. Well, thank you for for watching.

“I think honestly I'll be when I started my journey on food network.”

I was incredibly shy and it took me a long time to get comfortable to tell those stories and just comfortable cooking and talking at the same time. I think I'm not sure that everybody. I mean, maybe now they realize it, but it's difficult to storytelling be comfortable and follow a recipe and make it look easy and not stress if things you know are happening that shouldn't be happening. And you know, you also have a lot of people watching you that are not really watching you. They're sort of looking at their phones while you're doing your demo and they're reading a magazine and you're just like,

"Who am I talking to? I'm talking to a black screen. I've got nothing to look at." Like there's a black hole there and there's nothing nobody behind it. So I think in the beginning days it was very difficult. So the fact that that over the twenty-some years that I was doing it, it became impressionable and somehow really connected people is really a gift.

I could never have imagined.

Well, it totally is you and you totally have a gift. I'm glad that you said that you make it look easy because, you know, I have all of your cookbooks, right? Like all of them. And the first few times that I tried to make something, I was like, it's not as easy as she made it look on TV. Like there's patience. Like, could you talk me, no, no, no, no.

No, no. The cookbooks totally make it easy to follow through. I'm talking about when I was watching what you were doing on TV and it was like, let me try to replicate it that way.

“Which is why we, that's why I did cookbooks, right?”

Because people kept saying to me, wouldn't it be great to have a written down on like, why? You can just watch the show and write it down. It's cheaper that way. And people are like, no, no, no. If it's in a book, then there's a photo and we can refer back to it and you can give us a little, like hints that maybe we missed on the show.

So that's why we did the cookbooks. So it makes me happy to know that it was helpful. No, totally helpful because trying to follow you on TV. I was like, no, like, I can do it, but I can't do it in 30 minutes. Or I can do it.

Well, there's a lot of editing as we all know. Hey, like, you only see the good stuff. Nope, just out of again, honored to have you here.

And I always ask my guest this first question about their be caught.

Right, that thing that's deeper than your why. Like if I were to ask you what's your why, I'm sure I'm going to get your family, your friend. And giving back.

“But then when I say, but why are those things important?”

That sentence usually starts with, well, because, and I care about that moment. And what the world probably doesn't see is all the humanitarian things, the philanthropy that you do and how you give and giving give. And so what's your be cause for that today?

I think that might be cause is connected to, you know, after the many years of doing what I do, which is cooking on television and putting out cookbooks and understanding what people are looking for. And how they want to be connected to a community. And cooking to me is a community.

“And I think that over the years from the actual cooking to the cookbooks, to the restaurants,”

there's, there's so much noise in the food world with whatever kind of, whether it's products and we're learning new things every day about our food source. And to cut through that noise and sort of give people direction and some. And have them trust somebody that they're going to help them sort of weed through all of that information. Has led me into, you know, doing what I do on jazzy with, with my Italian products.

And really helping people understand how to use these products. What they should look for even if they're not buying my products. And how to better their lives. And that's really the because because I don't think that will ever stop.

I think that we will always be curious.

We will always want to do better for ourselves. And we'll always be evolving. And so I learned so much. And I find that it resonates when I share it. And so I just want to answer and help people through the struggle of.

Of all the noise that goes around in the crowded marketplace of all different. Marketing that is happening every single day around us. And I just want to help them feed their families and feel well. And you do amazing at that. And that's, you know, again, right before I call, I was talking to Robert.

“And I was even telling him, I think one of the things I appreciate the most about jada is this.”

Is that you feel care in everything that you do. Like, I feel that you care.

I feel that you're putting others first.

And I feel family, right? Not just the TV shows, but when you look at what you're doing as an entrepreneur. When you look at the conversations that you have. It's just like you genuinely care so much about others. And to me, that makes you one of the greatest humans that I know.

Oh, goodness. I'm blushing. I think I do care a lot. Yes, I grew up in a family who. I think because I'm an immigrant to this country.

And I came here when I was seven with my family from Italy. My family taught me to truly care about the people around me. That, you know, if you create that community, that's the community that will get you through any hard time. You know, we need each other.

“I think we've lost that a little bit with all the social media.”

I think there's wonderful things that social media has brought us. Connected us in one way, but also alienated us in others. Yeah. And I think there is no greater gift we can give each other than just spend time in the kitchen cooking for each other. And I think that, yes, I do care.

And I do care as to what I do and how the messaging goes out and how people receive it. And I care about feedback. And I think all of those things make us better. Are they exhausting? Yeah, they're exhausting.

And sometimes I'm like, I also need my quiet time where it's just me on my own to sort of reboot. And I think we all do. But yeah, I truly care. It do. Maybe to fall sometimes.

But I see that because I feel like I'm the same way. And sometimes we care more for others than then either we should or sometimes then they do about themselves or the mission that they're trying to push. So I totally get what you say in there. I want to be able to see that. I think people see that.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, heart. Yeah. So I want to give you some some praise and give you your flowers on what you've taught me personally about food.

And again, I'm going to get in trouble because Robert taught me how to make eggs, even though I don't eat eggs. But here's the unplug truth. You taught me how to appreciate pasta because growing up for me, like I wasn't a huge fan of pasta except spaghetti.

So I always associated pasta with spaghetti.

Sure. Many people didn't know. So watching Jada and then the first cookbook that I got from you, I got to truly understand what good pasta was like.

So I didn't know what I was doing with making it, but then understanding how to my words, co-mingle it with other foods and ingredients and understanding the essence of the right oils.

“I like you opened my mind as so much like when when did you know that that was a thing for you of how to teach others how to appreciate Italian cuisine, Mediterranean cuisine.”

But not what we think of here in the States when pasta is spaghetti for them. Well, I think the way you see pasta is very much where how a lot of people for a long time saw pasta and there's probably still people out there that still see it that way. I, you know, I grew up cooking and I grew up in an Italian family and my family imported a lot of the ingredients that we used because in the 70s when I moved here, we didn't have ricotta cheese.

We didn't have musket ponichis. We didn't have really barely any any pastas.

No, jarred sauces. Barely tomatoes. No olive oils. Like all of that stuff didn't exist. I think people don't realize it and that was only what 50 years ago. So there we've come a really long way. But so we imported everything. I didn't think what I was doing was that unique.

“Yes, did I see at school that people ate differently than I did? Yeah, but I don't know. I think when you're at kid, you feel like everybody lives the life you live at home, right?”

Yeah. So as I grew up, I started to realize, oh, I am different. And I knew I was different even at the young age because I lunched by myself for many years for a long time when I was very little because my mother would give me chocolate sandwiches or leftover pasta. And the kids were like, you're weird. You're just freaking weird. And we don't want to be around you. So I did realize it, but I, but I didn't to the same time. It was so much ingrained in my food and in my lifestyle and culture. And so I think it, it didn't, it didn't dawn on me until I started doing some stuff for food network.

And until I started every day Italian and I got feedback that like, this was great. We didn't know this. Tell us more. And I thought, you didn't know that.

“What do you mean you didn't know that? And I think you, you don't realize it when you live at every single day. You don't think it's that unique.”

So it was the people who watched my shows in the feedback I got that taught me, oh, people don't know this. And I should repeat it 20 times.

I should tell people they should put a ton of salt in their, in their water for their pasta because that's the first step to seasoning it.

I should tell them that the pasta should be all dead and how to see how to test that. Like all these things that I thought if I just say it once. But in learning to be a good teacher, you realize repetition is the way people learn. You repeat yourself and you repeat yourself and you repeat yourself and eventually it sticks, right? And so it was really feedback. I didn't know it until I got feedback from everybody. And I'm sure that you doing your podcast, you get feedback and you realize, oh, I should do that more because people like that or they learned a lot. I already knew this, but they clearly didn't.

So feedback from from followers and from people who were foodies is really how I learned it. So speaking of feedback, I want to give you even more praise like this is like me just gushing over Jada right now, but Jotsie. Yeah, you're direct to consumer and for everybody that's watching or listening, I have links to Jotsie in the show notes in the descriptions and social just click the button, but I love the entrepreneur side of you, but more importantly, the products that you have, this e-commerce brand is so fire like I'm constantly ordering stuff. I shouldn't admit it, but I don't care. I'm admitting why you can't.

Yeah, I'm constantly ordering and I do a lot of cooking, right? Like I do a lot of gatherings with family and friends and so everybody's awesome. Also, so this new sauce that you got, did you get it from Jotsie? And so now they're going on there too, just because you've made it so accessible. And it's amazing products, amazing ingredients. I'd love for you to talk a little bit about what made you want to start that and be that true entrepreneur that was budding inside of you the whole time. Yeah, I, you know, again, it's when I was doing my shows, one of the feedback that I kept getting was people kept asking me what brand of olive oil are you using, what brand of pasta.

And you know, when you do these kind of food shows, you're not allowed to show any brands and you're not really not allowed to talk about brands because everything is white labeled, right, for marketing advertising purposes.

And so that's really what led into into Jotsie. And you know, I realized that a lot of the products were products that I had been using from my parents that I had learned from my parents that we either imported or now you could find. And a lot of them were perverts in Italy that were small farmers that were producing this stuff. And so I just decided, you know, during COVID, I'm like, people can't get stuff. I'm going to start importing stuff and making kits with the products that I loved that I use and put them along with my recipe and then shift them to people and that's how Jotsie really started.

“I mean, it started earlier as a blog, but this is when the marketplace really started. And what I started to realize is the things that people loved were the olive oils, the tomatoes, the pastas.”

And so I started to really hone in on those products and really make it make it streamlined. And what I realized as well is that gluten free pasta was becoming the home run. And that was the sort of, yeah, that was sort of the front runner. And make I'm not a gluten free, I'm not gluten free. I gluten free people in my family. I do, but I am not. So I was really surprised to see it was gluten free pasta. And again, that only came about because so many of my followers were like, we want a great gluten free pasta. One that holds up to the sauce, one that is great the next day where people aren't coming over and saying, oh, that's gluten free where they can't tell.

So I'm not making multiple dishes to make everybody happy in my family or in a crowd of friends when I'm having a dinner party. And so that's, I worked really hard to kind of source that. And that became what became, you know, the number one product on the site. And now, you know, we launched into retail and the retailers are craving the gluten free pasta where I think there might be a hole in the marketplace as to, yes, there are other gluten free pastas, but they don't deliver on that promise that it's going to be.

You're not going to be able to tell the difference between the two and that it's clean without, you know, fillers and gums, which a lot of gluten free pastas have sadly. And from Italy and bronze cut and slow dried and all of the other things that matter in the end of the day to make a great pasta that now people have, you know, learned about.

“Yeah, so I almost got into a argument with family that didn't believe that it was gluten free because again, I don't, I'm not gluten free by any stretching imagination either, but when I made it for myself first.”

And I was like, this is freaking amazing because I've had other gluten free pastas and it was like, okay, it'll do if I have to correct that's me, but that and then the nickel free tomato, so like people were arguing with me that this is not gluten free, I had to go get boxes and show and pull up your website, I promise you this is it. And everybody was so blown away that now, whenever I have a get to, I could be on the smokers smoking something and people want your gluten free pasta, okay, great, we'll have burgers and pasta because nothing wrong with it.

“Yeah, I think that it's it's really blown me away and it's I've eaten a lot more gluten free pasta in the last couple years all having to do with the fact that it is just so great when you cook it and you just cannot tell the difference.”

So I'm going to say that my pasta, do you know what passata is? Have you tried the passata if you haven't actually said you some. Yeah, the passata is also and the cherry tomatoes, those are also some of my favorite products just because it's again just tomatoes without sugar, a lot of passata in this country have a lot of things added to them. They're naturally sweet, they have no skin and no seeds which is something my daughter really likes because I found that here in America people like smooth sauces were in Italy, we like chunkier sauces.

We like the texture of the tomato broken up and the skin and the seeds like but here they don't so the passata is like drinkable it's that good.

It really isn't so here's what I'm going to do I usually do this at the end of the show, but I want to do it right now because we're talking about it.

Because I know you are a giver, I'm going to be a giver too because I support you so much here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to give like a hundred dollar gift card so that they can go order some stuff because I want to create so many raving fans of what you do so I'm essentially giving out two thousand dollars that's going to go straight to jazzy because you're going to love the products like I promise you.

I didn't like the thickness before but I just I love it.

“I know I get it. I get it. The shakes though I think are what also make us unique. Do we have spaghetti? Yes, we do.”

We have we have a lot of you know the regular shapes but to me the uniqueness are the shapes that I grew up with the naughty marini the Medzi di Gatoni the Casarechi the Orakirti the Selena like those are the ones that to me. Shine they just do and they make eating pasta regularly much more interesting. Totally agree so again if you're listening if you're watching message me directly on Instagram jazzy. I'm going to give you a hundred dollars to go spend. And then I want you to tell jada what you love like what you are just what we love and how you're doing like film yourself like we're going to like just trust me.

I love it. I can tell you trust me.

I love it. I love it. Thank you. Absolutely. So I'm going to move to the segment I call hot takes. Because you gave me the hottest take ever when you told me you don't like cauliflower rice. I don't I don't and the funny thing is I like cauliflower but I don't like cauliflower rice. I also don't like red peppers or green peppers for that matter and I don't like coconut either. So coconut cakes anything with coconut.

I don't touch solely. I'm allergic. If you ever want to kill me give me coconut flakes. I can drink coconut water but the packaging you drink coconut water.

Because it's the actual flakes like I'm allergic to the actual whatever enzyme is in the flake the protein of the flake like can't process it my throat closes up the coconut water totally fine. Okay, okay, we're that okay fair enough. Yeah, I'm not allergic to any of those things. I don't think you'd kill me but I would not feel well. I'll just say that. But yeah, call me cauliflower rice. It's not that I won't feel I don't know. There's something weird texture wise with cauliflower rice.

“I just I've never been it's not my thing. Is it yours?”

No, not at all. I just got into doing like cauliflower crust on pizza. You can you can hate you for that too, but I got so I got into it. I'm just not pizza to be honest, but I guess that's like saying. You know, if if you're not gluten free you might as well not eat gluten free pasta. I don't know, but I think I think that it hasn't been. It just hasn't been perfected just yet. I will just say the texture's a little strange and my stomach never feels good afterwards. So I don't know what the heck they're putting in that cauliflower crust, but my stomach does not like it.

Like just me. It's not my favorite thing, but if I have cauliflower or anything, I can you can do the pizza. Okay, alright fair enough. Another hot take that you've had that truly resonates with me. You said enjoy your life and like who you eat food with. And like food is so much more enjoyable when it's a great company. And I didn't really start to appreciate that until I was reading that statement from you and it made me pause and say, you know what?

All the family get together and we have good food, but like I started making food like the center point because of you. You truly enjoy those moments better. The food tastes better when you're around people that you enjoy. Talk to us a little bit about that and why that's so important. You know, in my last cookbook when I was writing about food and one of the ingredients, I was talking a lot about just ingredients that have nutrition, right? Like because we think we forget that we need, we need to add some nutrient dense ingredients to things like papers, let's say, or anchovies or even olive oil, garlic is one.

One of the ingredients that I think we kind of forget is that la dotivita, the enjoyment of our life and who we eat with and who we sit down at a table with is a big part of the joy that kind of drives the body. And helps the body to break down food and the way that it absorbs food.

“I just, I think that people still, and they're getting better at this, but I think a lot of times think about when you're on the go or you're eating and you're stressed out, right?”

How does your stomach feel? I don't think it matters if you ate a light meal or a heavy meal.

You know, they're all so interconnected to each other that if we can be laughing and having fun and enjoying the people that were around while we're eating, we will feel better. The longevity is that piece of the longevity piece is just as important as the food you're putting on the table, right? So if you're sitting down with your family and there's a lot of arguments and things going on, chances are your body's not going to absorb that nutrition in the same way that it would if it was enjoyable.

So I think it's really, I always tell people it's really important to think about who you're eating with and how you're eating the food, like not over the sink in, you know, under 20 minutes or under 10 minutes, which is really or a bite here and a bite there, but actually allowing the time to sit down and enjoy each other. And that is part of the Italian lifestyle. We really do, you know, we really put a lot of effort into that and we think about each meal.

“We eat breakfast and we think about what's lunch and what's dinner going to be like, who's going to be at the table? How are we going to set the table? What are we going to eat like?”

We put a lot of stock into that and I think that is part of our longevity and happiness piece.

Amen. Amen completely. You always have so much going on.

I'm going to give you the floor to talk about what's new. Like, what all do you have coming up where we're in the world is jotting going to be in the next five minutes, right? Like, the floor is yours. Like, what all do you have going on? What's new with jotting? Well, I'm on the East Coast. So I'm going to spend some time in New York right now working and then I will be in Chicago next week to open another restaurant outside of Chicago and a town called Aurora, which

“for those people who know, yeah, you know, Chicago is said, why don't I know where are you based?”

I'm in South Carolina, but I'm in Chicago quite a bit. Yeah, so this is in Chicago land as I've been taught to say. In Chicago, you know, people live so far out of the main city of Chicago and so we're going to open up in Aurora and we open next week and I'm really excited. I've been going back and forth between the two and next week finally we open the doors. We take reservations. And so I've been working on this project and building it for over a year now. So it's been really it's really exciting to see it all come together.

And we're going to sell jazzy products in it. Like, it's trying to bring all of the businesses together. So that there's some kind of synergy between all of it, you know, and I think that's been sort of my mission is to bring these businesses together. So they all feed each other. And it makes more sense that way instead of them all living in a silo on their own, you know, so that's that's been my big my big project. I love that. I love that. So I'm going to do another something. How about this? Because I don't know when it's going to be July or August, but I'm going to be in the Chicago area.

So I'm going to bring some guests with me. And we're going to come experience the new restaurant. We've got to let me know. It's called it's called sorella sorella sorella. So that means sister in Italian. Nice. Maybe I'll bring my sister. How about that? So we're sure it's a great idea. Yeah, we're sure you come with me. Maybe we'll even do something cool. Like, I'll do some good social and maybe record some stuff there. But yeah, we love to host you. We'd love it. So thank you. We're going to do it. Absolutely. I'm excited.

Me, too. Me, too. You made my day. You've told me made my day. Again, I know how busy you are. So I'm not going to hold you. You've been amazing.

You're going to get you out of here on what I call my unplug five. So rapid fire. Five questions. Got it. Okay. Ready. I don't know. I might not be so. What's one tool in the kitchen that you can't live without? Probably my sent to go knife.

“Small enough that I can hold it. Not so heavy. Okay. Who's one person you've yet to cook for that you can't wait to cook for?”

Oh, that be. Actually, you know what? I've never cooked for Martha Stewart and I do love her. We're acquaintances, but we're not yet. I've never cooked for her before. So I would like to cook for her.

Okay. What's something that you could teach someone to cook perfectly in 60 seconds or less? Not saying that the cook has to be done in 60 seconds or less, but you could walk them through how to cook something perfectly in 60 seconds or less. Lemon spaghetti. Okay. I love that. I love that.

I love that. I love that. And if you were to start, this is the most important question of the day. If you were to start another cooking show.

How much do I have to pay to be your sushi chef? I love sushi chefs. I'll take anybody that wants to help. That doesn't include the dishes though.

Oh, I'll hire somebody for dishes. Don't worry about that.

So everybody hates me because I still hand watch dishes. I rarely use a dish. I should like, is therapeutic for me to hand watch dishes.

“I don't I don't think you want. No, I don't disagree. Although I will say everyone's no while. Like you should put them in the dishwasher just for that intense heat that you probably aren't giving the dishes.”

But I actually agree that I think dishes are quite therapeutic. I just don't feel like doing it all the time. True. Very, very true. I've been honored to have you on for everybody that's watching this listening again. We have links to all things. Here, click below support, follow, go to the to the online store, order some of these cookbooks.

“That's something else I'm going to do. You tell me which one do you want super Italian? Do you want me to order something else?”

Super Italian. I think it's so helpful for people. There's a lot of great information. Super Italian.

Okay. So the first set you're going to mess is me, Josie, and I'm going to give you a hundred dollars to go spend.

Second set, I'm going to buy the book. So the first twenty people that messaged me super Italian, I'm going to get you that cookbook. Wow. My goodness.

“You are very generous. You've changed my life and perspective on food. So much that it's honestly the least I can do.”

And I freaking love the product. So like this is my way of saying, "Jada, I support you and I stand beside you." So it's the least I could do. Thank you for inviting me. This is really fun. It was really great chat. Now, this has been awesome. You have been awesome. And for all the viewers and listeners, remember, your because is your super power. Go and listen.