I ended up wanting to be a cook and hold my own in a restaurant.
For reasons I didn't understand, I felt I needed to learn how to cook the food of France and knew that I was going to have to get over to the country: to Paris, I'd always assumed.
Giada De Laurentiis, of 'Everyday Italian,' is not a chef, although she has culinary expertise - she was trained at the Cordon Bleu and worked as a private cook for a wealthy Los Angeles family.