We are sure most Italian food lovers, especially those who are also fans of our beloved Italian gourmet Chef, cookbook writer and Food Network celebrity Giada De Laurentiis, have already seen these pictures, which are pretty much all over the web, especially on Italian food blogs like us. 

We blogged several times this month about Giada De Laurentiis, to announce her new gourmet line Giada De Laurentiis Selected by Academia Barilla and to publish a couple of Giada’s recipes. Now we really want to give space to this great Giada photo shooting who’s traveling around the blogosphere.

Yes, we can answer the same question everybody is asking: “is this a photoshop effect?”  The answer is No. She really is Giada De Laurentiis bathing in a sea of tomato juice.

This is actually the third picture of a series by photographer Gavin Comb for Esquire, the men lifestyle magazine, who always dedicates stunning photo services to women celebrities, for the series Women We Love. Here is the first Giada photo shot of the 3-shot series.

And the second, right before she find herself in a lake of tomato juice as in the first picture we published.

As reported in the original article by Esquire, the concept for the photo shoot was:

In her crusade to show the world how much enjoyment can be derived from Italian cooking, De Laurentiis goes through a lot of tomatoes.

An average of two thirty-two-ounce cans per day (as shown in the first slide), to be precise. So in a month that would be… well, you can see that in the second photo.

“Canned tomatoes are packaged when they’re the ripest and the sweetest,” she says, “so there’s really no reason to go with fresh.”

Very smart article and concept for the photo shooting, and great Giada De Laurentiis pictures!

The article came with a recipe from Giada on how to make a great Giada’s Home-made Sauce, still online at the Esquire website, go have a look!