Italian Food Lovers

As we announced with a previous post, last June 29, on the opening day of the hip New York food show Fancy Food NY, Academia Barilla organized a cocktail party with Giada De Laurentiis as a top guest, at the stylish Astra NY Lounge, at the 14th floor of the beautiful D+D Building on 3rd Avenue, with amazing views of the city that never sleeps.

The event was part of the launch and official announcement of the US nationwide distribution of the new Italian gourmet food line Giada De Laurentiis Selected by Academia Barilla we already introduced on our Italian Food Lovers blog.

At the Astra Lounge, while Giada presented her new gourmet product line, a team of Chef from Barilla USA prepared some gourmet appetizers using Giada’s and Academia Barilla’s products, while Mionetto was partnering the NY event providing pairing wines.

We will be following up soon on this, publishing photos and recipes from the NY event, as soon as we get them at the blog editorial team. In the meanwhile, we are pleased to announce that we will publish in the next couple of weeks some Giada recipes prepared with her new products, so stay tuned!

It is official now - we have been talking about the new Academia Barilla line of Italian gourmet products signed by Italian Chef, cookbook writer and TV celebrity Giada De Laurentiis since last november, as we were very excited about it and couldn’t resist the temptation to anticipate the news (after all, this is a blog, we take some liberties as bloggers generally do).

So we introduced Giada’s product line a few months ago, then we tracked her book signing and other events, such as when Giada was featured as special guest of the month at Crate & Barrel, with a first preview and special limited distribution of the Giada De Laurentiis Selected by Academia Barilla line of Italian gourmet specialties.

Last Sunday June 29 Giada De Laurentiis and Academia Barilla organized a great cocktail party in NY as a collateral event for Fancy Food - don’t worry, we will blog about the event as soon as we get a couple of pictures and some gossip.

The NY event served also as an official Academia Barilla announcement of the nationwide distribution and availability of the new Italian gourmet food line (which is of course available also at the Academia Barilla online store) - a very official announcement, to the point that we broadcasted a press release to officialize the news.

You might have seen our press release online, republished via RSS by blogs and news aggregators who are into Italian food as we are, and now it is with great pleasure that we republish the press release also on our beloved Italian Food Lovers blog. The original version of the release is also available online at PRWeb, for our friends journalists and bloggers who need to download attachments and images.

Here we go (integral text from July 1st press release) -

Academia Barilla and Italian Celebrity Chef and Author Giada De Laurentiis Launch Italian Gourmet Line

Academia Barilla and Emmy nominated Italian celebrity chef and cookbook author Giada De Laurentiis launch a range of co-branded, specialty Italian food items for distribution in gourmet stores nationwide.

Bannockburn, IL (July 1, 2008) — Academia Barilla and Emmy nominated celebrity chef and cookbook author Giada De Laurentiis launch a range of co-branded, specialty food items for distribution in gourmet stores nationwide.

Giada De Laurentiis Selected by Academia Barilla® is Barilla’s first-ever gourmet celebrity product line, and offers food connoisseurs an authentic taste of Italy.  Products include Italian Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Balsamic Vinegar of Modena, Sicilian Hand-Harvested Sea Salt with Fresh Lemon Zest, and Giada’s Tuscan Herb Mix, all personally selected by De Laurentiis. Giada De Laurentiis Selected by Academia Barilla® will also be available online at the Academia Barilla online store beginning today, July 1, 2008.

Giada De Laurentiis is host of two popular Food Network cooking shows, a co-host of NBC’s Today show, and author of three New York Times best-selling cookbooks, with two and a half million copies in print. Her most recent book, Everyday Pasta, was released in April 2007. A fourth cookbook, Giada’s Kitchen, will be in bookstores nationwide in Fall 2008. She is the granddaughter of famed Italian movie producer Dino De Laurentiis and legendary actress Silvana Mangano. 

Ms. De Laurentiis was the spokesperson for the Barilla Group’s U.S. Pasta division, appearing in print ad campaigns across the country for the past two years. Her ongoing relationship with the company through Academia Barilla is best described as a natural fit, as both are dedicated to the love of traditional Italian cooking with the best products and ingredients available.

As Giada De Laurentiis says, and reports on the back label of all Giada De Laurentiis Selected by Academia Barilla® products, “I was born in Rome, and I grew up in a large Italian family where the culture of food was an integral part of my life. My relationship with Academia Barilla is an obvious one, combining my love for traditional Italian cooking with the best ingredients available“.

About Academia Barilla - (note: we cut the boilerplate off as our readers already know Academia Barilla, but we leave the press contacts for the United States, just in case)

For more information, please contact Ms. Kim Sayid of Academia Barilla at 866.77.ACADEMIA or 847.405.7524. Visit also the Academia Barilla website and our Italian Food Lovers gourmet blog.

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