Background

La Fountain was born to a French American father and Finnish mother, after they had met during the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York. Her parents separated later on, and La Fountain moved to Finland with her mother, who was then remarried. Her father has continued a family business in New York and runs a restaurant and hotel with his brother. La Fountain was raised in the Eira neighborhood in Helsinki, the capital of Finland, and in a family estate in Kirkkonummi. She attended a Rudolf Steiner school. In 2005, La Fountain got engaged with renowned music video director Antti Jokinen in Paris, France. They share homes in Helsinki and the United States. Jokinen has one child from a previous relationship.

Career

Training

La Fountain was trained at The Culinary Institute of America, the world-renowned culinary school in New York. Before and during the studies, La Fountain earned money working in a restaurant and as a fashion model.

Entrepreneur

After returning to Finland, La Fountain started her own business and was soon noticed by the Finnish media.

La Fountain wrotes food columns in various Finnish magazines and newspapers, including Helsingin Sanomat, Ilta-Sanomat and Seura, in which she had a weekly column. La Fountain also arranges cookery courses, does food styling and has her own catering service. She has also done product development for different brands, including Fazer and Finlandia Vodka.

Television

In 2005, La Fountain starred in her own lifestyle TV show called Avec Sara on MTV3. Each of the 10 episodes had its own theme from brunches to birthday parties, karaoke nights, and Japanese and Indian social evenings. In 2008, La Fountain starred in Perfect Day TV series, which is an international lifestyle program sold to around 60 countries worldwide. It includes four well-known Nordic chefs (Tina Nordström, Andreas Viestad, Claus Meyer and La Fountain herself) introducing traditional foods, customs and culture of their own countries, including Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark. In addition to the TV show, La Fountain also starred in a 36-episode online series called A Perfect Day in Sara’s Kitchen. In 2008, La Fountain also appeared on UKTV Food’s popular Market Kitchen TV series as a guest chef.

Books

La Fountain was awarded at the prestigious Gourmand World Cookbook Awards in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 2006 for her cookery book À la Sara in the category of the Best First Cookbook. The book version of Perfect Day TV series was published in 2008. It includes recipes from all of the chefs and information on the various locations they visited in the course of the series.

Design

La Fountain has designed various series of tableware, glassware and textiles for Finnish clothing brand Luhta Home, including Lotus, Baroque, Marocco and Agadir. She has also designed patterns for shoes of kitchen professionals by Finnish Jalas footware company.

Links

• Official Homepage
• BestCuisine : Sara La Fountain

Gallery

Personal life

De Laurentiis was born Giada Pamela De Laurentiis in Rome, Italy, the eldest child of actress Veronica De Laurentiis and her first husband, actor-producer Alex De Benedetti, who was a close associate of his wife’s father, the film producer Dino De Laurentiis. Her parents were married in February 1970. After their parents’ divorce, De Laurentiis and her siblings moved to Southern California, where Giada and her siblings took their mother’s surname.

Her grandparents are producer Dino De Laurentiis and Italian film star Silvana Mangano. Her siblings include sister Eloisa, a makeup artist, and brothers Dino Alexander, a Hollywood film editor, and Igor. Her stepfather is producer Ivan Kavalsky.

De Laurentiis graduated from Marymount High School and holds a bachelor’s degree in social anthropology from UCLA (1996).

In 2003, she married Todd Thompson, a fashion designer for Anthropologie. The two had been dating since 1991. The couple’s first child, Jade Marie De Laurentiis Thompson, was born on March 29, 2008.

De Laurentiis, dubbed as “a petite powerhouse” by Town & Country magazine, stands “just under five foot two.”

Career

De Laurentiis, a self-proclaimed chocoholic, studied at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, France with aspirations of becoming a pastry chef. After returning to the United States, she became a professional chef working in several Los Angeles restaurants, notably the Wolfgang Puck-owned Spago. She later worked as a food stylist, and was contacted by Food Network after styling a piece in Food & Wine Magazine in 2002.

Her cooking program, Everyday Italian, has been broadcast on Food Network since 2003. On her Chefography (a Food Network biography program), she admitted that she never wanted to be in her “family business” of show business. She felt very uncomfortable in front of the camera when she first began hosting Everyday Italian, but has since become more relaxed and open on air. When the program first aired, Food Network received emails accusing the network of hiring a model or actress pretending to cook instead of a real chef.

De Laurentiis began hosting Behind the Bash in October 2006. The program examines the catering process behind big event extravaganzas such as the Grammy Awards. In January 2007, a third De Laurentiis-hosted show, Giada’s Weekend Getaways, debuted on Food Network. On this show, De Laurentiis travels to a featured locale (such as Seattle, South Beach, San Francisco, Napa and Jackson Hole, Wyoming) and visits her favorite local culinary destinations.

On a November 2006 episode of Iron Chef America, De Laurentiis and Bobby Flay competed against, and were defeated by, Rachael Ray and Mario Batali.

In 2007, De Laurentiis appeared as a presenter on the inaugural Food Network Awards. In June 2007, she hosted a two-part Food Network special entitled Giada in Paradise, featuring the two locales of Santorini, Greece and Capri, Italy. De Laurentiis also made several appearances as a guest judge on the third season of The Next Food Network Star, which aired in 2007. In 2008, she won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lifestyle Host.

De Laurentiis is a spokesperson for the pasta manufacturer Barilla.

Links

• Official site
• Food Network profile

Gallery