by Rocco Bonfire

Created on: May 20, 2007   Last Updated: May 21, 2007

I dont know about the rest of the cooking world,but two things happen to me when I watch Rachel Ray and Giada Delaurentis:

1. I immediately get a boyish crush on Rachel. Hoping to carry her books home from school and share a milk shake with her at the diner.
2. I am transformed into an Italian movie star,longing to eat my way through Europe with Giada at my side, while I selflessly carry her wheel of ptarmigan cheese from vesper to cafe.

OK, what does this have to do with cooking ,selling books or Television? Nothing at all. But it does have everything to do with fantasy and food,and how it shapes culture and relationships.
Mothers at one time told their daughters that the way to a mans heart is through his stomach. I dont know if they tell them that anymore but they should. I certainly tell my daughter, and trying to show her the power of cooking is no small feat.
You see as a young boy I remember being at my best friends house while his older sister would scramble around the kitchen baking cookies, making french fries and completely ignoring me and never knowing how beautiful I thought she was with her hair up,no make up, and slippers..and how nothing was more exciting to me than when she wold finally acknowledge me and despite my show-off antics and petty annoyances would lean over the counter, all forgiving and offer me a slice of lemon merang pie..... um thats puppy love ladies and gentlemen..in all its glory.
Well, as I grew these fantasies of dessert food and girls turned to a more cultured palette, and when I watch Giada I can't help feeling like the Italian race car driver in " Viva Las Vegas". Even though maybe Rachel or my friends sister might wind up with Elvis car top down flying down the strip, I could be quite content sitting by a fountain in Florence after a tremendous antipasti sipping an espresso and sharing a two thousand calorie pastry with Giada who never gains a pound.... So why would these cook books sell? Well I buy them for my daughter, because the way to a mans heart , as far as I know... is through his stomach.

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