There is something about tomato soup that gives it the ability to hit the spot like no other food item out there. And when paired with a grilled cheese sandwich, well, it becomes transcendently good*. However, in this time of post holiday austerity, you may want to omit the sandwich and just go for a bowl of refreshing and virtuous soup.

If that is the case for you (as it is for me, especially since I just ate two scones in rapid succession), you might want to take a peek at this Hearty Tomato Soup that VJ made recently. It's based on this recipe by Giada De Laurentiis, however VJ veganized it and suggests that you add more garlic and beans than the recipe calls for. I think it sounds lovely and wish that a bowl would appear in front me right now.

*If you happen to be at Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia, stop by the Down Home Diner and see if they are serving their tomato soup and grilled cheese combo. They don't always have it on the menu, but when they do, it is absolutely worth indulging. They use whole grain bread, amazing sharp cheddar cheese and soup is chunky with veggies. It might just be one of my favorite meals in the world.

I'll be the first to admit that FoodNetwork personality, cookbook author, and all-around celebrity chef Giada de Laurentiis isn't one of my favorites. I have no logical, fair reason, other than "she's annoying," because though she is "pretty" in a very standard view of what pretty might be (long, dark hair, cat eyes, deep cleavage), her head seems disproportionately large (physically, not figuratively) for the rest of her tiny, taut body, and when she "smiles," it looks so forced and unnatural that it almost looks like an evil grimace.

However, I now have real reason to not like her very much: an odd set of photos at Esquire that, given that it were anyone else, would be fairly sexy, but with Giada, looks downright disgusting.

The 2007 Food Network Awards were held in February during the South Beach Wine & Food Festival, but the results were just broadcast a few nights ago during a 90-minute TV special. I missed the actual show, but have a full listing of the winners which you can find after the jump.

The categories this year were strange to say the least - you won't find anything relating to any of the actual shows or people of the Food Network, however, the network personalities were out in full force. Giada De Laurentiis, Bobby and Paula Deen, Rachael Ray, and Bobby Flay (among others) presented alongside a rather odd choice of celebrities (really, this is food - not the oscars!) including Catherine Zeta-Jones and Aaron Eckhart. Though it may seem odd, I'm sure it was highly entertaining.

If you want to catch the entire awards show, the Food Network will apparently be running an encore tonight.

To a large portion of the population, "carb" was nothing more than a nasty, four-letter word a few years ago. Like most diets and trends though, the shelf life on that has largely expired and people are once again venturing down the bread and pasta aisles of their local supermarkets. This is especially good news for lovers of Italian food, and even better news for someone like Giada De Laurentiis.

The Food Network personality, chef, and author of several cookbooks released her latest book earlier this month, entitled Everyday Pasta. She has all the basics covered including spaghetti, ravioli, risotto, salads, wine, and various sauces, plus she incorporates a number of her favorite ingredients into the dishes such as pancetta, fresh herbs, and citrus.

Want a little preview? Amazon.com has a recipe for Giada's Rigatoni with Sausage, Peppers, and Onions displayed, which I have included after the jump.

If you are tired of your old kitchen and appliances, or get jealous every time you watch a cooking show on television and see what they have to work with, then you may want to check out the Food Network's latest contest, Dine In Dine Out. One lucky grand prize winner will have the opportunity to win a fantasy kitchen makeover, and really, who couldn't use that?

The grand prize package includes $50,000 in cash which can be used towards building your dream kitchen, a package of Calphalon kitchenware including pots, pans, bakeware, cutlery and utensils, two Giada De Laurentiis cookbooks, and a trip for two to New York City. The total grand prize package is valued at approximately $63,065.

The contest is only open to residents of the fifty US states who are 21 years of age and older. Between now and April 2, 2007 you can enter online at the Food Network website once per day, or by mailing in your entry unlimited times, but only one entry per envelope will be accepted. Further details, rules, and terms & conditions can be found on their website.

It is taking just about every ounce of control I possess right now not to go jump on a plane and head down to Florida. The 6th annual South Beach Wine and Food Festival is set to begin tomorrow, February 22nd and will run through Sunday, February 25th.

Most of the events have already sold out, and they are expecting approximately 18,000 people to attend throughout the weekend. The purpose of the festival is to showcase the talents of world-renowned chefs, culinary personalities, and wine & spirit producers, as well as celebrate Latin and Caribbean-inspired cuisine.

Warning: The post below contains spoilers, so if you TiVo'd last night's "Iron Chef America" and don't want to know who won, I suggest you stop reading now.

Last night, the oddest battle in the history of Kitchen Stadium took place, a battle of the Food Network All-Stars that pit Mario Batali and Rachael Ray against Bobby Flay and Giada de Laurentiis. The theme ingredient was cranberries. It seemed to take Rachael and Mario several minutes to find their groove, with Rachael seeming to get flustered and Mario looking a little impatient, although the pair seemed to have the dishes they would do divided up already. It looked like things started out very smoothly for Bobby and Giada, on the other hand, who both appeared focused. As time wore on, however, Rachael adapted more and more to the kitchen and the pressure of the time began to affect Giada's performance. Bobby did his usual good work, but unfortunately, the judges weren't as impressed with Giada's plates as they were with Rachael's -- although it probably didn't hurt that Mario bribed them all with cranberry Bellini's halfway through the competition!

From the fact that both women seemed a bit stressed out at the end of the cooking period, it seems as though neither would be eager to return to the stadium. If the Food Network is thinking of doing another All-Star battle, however, how about Ina Garten vs. Paula Deen?

At the beginning of the year, we mentioned that a special celebrity chef episode of Iron Chef America would be airing in fall and it looks like the week has finally arrived! This Sunday's episode of Iron Chef America will feature both Rachael Ray and Giada de Laurentiis, pairing Rachael with Mario Batali and Giada with Bobby Flay, in what is sure to be an interesting showdown, to say the least.

Who will win the battle of food network personalities? Rachael is primarily self taught and most of her cooking experience comes from actually teaching others to cook, aside from a stint as the chef at Cowan & Lobel market in Albany, New York. Giada, on the other hand, studied at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris and worked at several well-known restaurants, including Spago in Los Angeles, before starting a catering company. This isn't to say that all professionally trained chefs will do better than home schooled ones, but it is the really high-end, innovative dishes that "wow" the judges on ICA and it seems like Giada would be more likely to turn them out than Rachael. Bobby and Mario will have a big part in this two, of course, so based on previous episodes and the personalities of all four "Food Network All-Star" participants, I'm rooting for Bobby's team.

Giada de Laurentiis came from a big family, and they would all get together on Sundays as she was growing up. The dinner table would be packed not with 8 or 10 people, but with 15, 20 or even more. To feed that many hungry people, everyone in her family relied on relatively simply Italian fare that could feed a crowd, and Giada carries that same feeling over into Giada's Family Dinners. The recipes in the book are easy to read and well-presented, making it suitable for experienced and novice cooks alike. There are dishes that even picky eaters will enjoy, like Chicken Carbonara and Ravioli with Creamy Tomato sauce, because the book is not about the super-gourmet dishes that will only be appreciated by culinary experts. Most are scaled to produce quite a lot of food, so you might want to experiment with freezing leftovers or simply plan to get lunches for a few days when you make a big batch of pasta or soup. The desserts, however, you'll want to eat right away; it's hard enough to wait until the end of the meal to dig into desserts like Chocolate Pizza and Nectarine and Blueberry Crisp .

Some of us love the Food Network. Some of us want to hate it, but can't. I am of the latter group. I want to ban the channel from my television for some of the things they have done to my viewing pleasure (Iron Chef! Bring back Iron Chef!), but I can't. I just can't do it because there are a few things that still capture my attention:

1. I love watching Michael Chiarello throw together some seriously delicious looking Napa-terranean meals; better yet, I love watching him stroll through the vineyard in his jeans, caressing his grapes. (Oh my, did I blog that second part out loud?!?!)
2. Tyler Florence is hot. I'd like to be Tyler's Ultimate.
3. There is a rumor that the original Iron Chef is coming back (it is on the schedule at 4 am right now). Not confirmed, but a rumor is better than nothing.
4. Paula Deen's food scares my fat cells, but she is too adorable when she is cooking with her sons.
5. Alton Brown is good eats. 
6. They will have Nigella Lawson some time this year
7. By some glorious semi-homemade alignment of the stars, every time I turn the television on, Sandra Lee is not scheduled (unfortunately, Rachael Ray is, but that's a different post).
8. Even though I am not a fan of Giada de Lauentiis, I like her taste in kitchens and clothes.

It's a popular week for the release of new cookbooks and cooking-relating memoirs.  A quick look at Amazon's list of pre-ordered books notes that the Food Network's Giada De Laurentiis has a new book out today, while there's also a new memoir from Julia Child, edited by her grandnephew. Additionally, Amazon's list of summer 2006 books includes a book by Bill Buford, the former fiction editor of the New Yorker. In the very well-reviewed Heat, Buford befriends Mario Batali, and offers a insidery look at the cooking world.

A few weeks ago, we managed to find out that an upcoming episode of Iron Chef America would feature both Rachael Ray and Giada de Laurentiis, pairing Rachael with Mario Batali and Giada with Bobby Flay. Even the wordsmith host of the show thinks that this battle will be one for the record books, saying “The only way this battle could be better for the Food Network would be for them to have Emeril Lagasse as the secret ingredient” in an article in the Ithaca Journal.

The episode was actually filmed in January, but it is scheduled to air sometime in November, which means that Rachael and Giada have already done their thing in Kitchen Stadium – and both report that it was one of their most challenging experiences. Interestingly enough, the article also gives confirmation that the chefs learn about the ingredients in advance, as before the taping the ingredient was revealed to them: cranberries. Given the ingredient, the episode will most likely air in mid-November or around Thanksgiving, but we’ll have to wait until then to see how well the celebrity chef pairings worked together and to find out whose cuisine reigned supreme.

If you watched America's Next Food Network Star last year, as I did, you'll know that one of the points they want to make to the audience is that the food tastes good. Really good. To drive this point home, it's almost always mandatory for the chefs to taste their food, though the audience on Emeril's show is acceptable, too. Rachael Ray saves her tasting for the end of the episode, as the camera fades out. Paula Deen is great at tasting her cooking and seems to relish ever bite, often loading her spoon with so much buttery goodness that she laughs over the fact she can't speak! Giada de Laurentiis does a bit of both, but TVgasm managed to catch a moment where she wasn't at her best. Or rather, her cranberry sorbet was not at its best. She bravely went back for a second try. Check out the screenshots for the blow by blow, or rather, the bite by bite.