I'M FAMOUS....maybe

I came so close. I've been waiting to be discovered all my life, but so far fame seems to be passing me by. Until today.

I was heading for gelato near the Santa Trinita bridge when I noticed a knot of people and two cameramen out front. The front entry seemed to be blocked, but, since I was unwilling to be deterred from what guidebooks promised to be a culinary experience at one of the best shops in town, I snuck in a side door and got in line.

Giada De Laurentiis

Behind me, a woman spoke in such dulcet tones to two young children about gelato, how a waffle cone was preferable to a sugar cone, and what choices might be good ones for them among the many she had tried that I turned to ask her advice about stracciatelli.

Did this vanilla gelato with chocolate streaks on top called stracciatelli have chocolate all the way through? She explained, in a peculiarly familiar way, that any time hot chocolate was added to a cold mixture, the result was chunks of chocolate throughout.

Giada

Convinced I would love this flavor, my first gelato on this trip to Italy, I thanked her, placed my order, and then turned to tell her she looked very familiar.

The little boy looked at me as though I were daft, but the woman simply said I might recognize her if I watched cooking shows--Giada.

Did the cameraman who was there by my left shoulder all this time record this exchange? Will this be the start of bigger things to come for me as a chef? As a consumer of gelato? Might I finally become famous at long last?

Keep watching the Food Network. Maybe you'll see me on the day I got discovered!