Laura Vitale

Laura Vitale is a YouTube personality, YouTube cooking show host, and food writer. Vitale is the host of the popular online cooking show Laura in the Kitchen. Her show began in January 2010, and is designed to teach people with little kitchen experience how to cook. Viewers can make suggestions by leaving comments for an episode (usually one recipe per episode). Vitale selects the suggested recipes based on their popularity.

She was born Laura Pietrangeli in November 1986 in Naples, Italy. She moved to the United States at the age of 12, and is married to an American-born engineer named Joe Vitale.

Vitale has no formal education in the culinary arts, and believes that makes it easier for her students to follow her recipes. Anyone can make a request via her website, she will make the requested recipes based on popularity of the requested dish.

The kitchen used in the online show was built by Laura and her husband as a set specifically for the show. Since the launch of the show, she has become a staple on the popular youtube.com website where she has made a name for herself in the culinary world.

In mass media
Vitale was selected by Paula Deen as a finalist in The Real Women of Philadelphia (Launched by Digitas), (an internet-based reality show hosted by Deen) competition May 6, 2010 and was flown to Savannah (June 27, 2010) to compete for a talent contract and to be crowned one of The real Women of Philadelphia.< She also appeared on NBC Philadelphia's '10! Show' around that time in 2010.

In late 2010 Vitale began writing for The Sentinel, a Southern New Jersey Newspaper. She is also part of The Daily Journal's Food Advisory Board cor which she writes a column.

In 2010 she worked with Progresso to launch a new line of frozen sauces. The product was announced in February 2011 and Vitale appeared on the product packaging as well as in product demonstration videos. She was one of the hosts on Progresso's The Idea Pantry website, a website featuring their new frozen sauce product line.

In November 2011, Laura was selected by YouTube to be a YouTube NextChef, recognized as an up and coming star and was featured in Forbes.

In March 2012 Laura appeared in the Everyday Health's 'Recipe Rehab' competition, an online web series, competing against other celebrity chefs such as Chef Jet Tila, formerly of Iron Chef America and Chef Jill Davie.

Multimedia studio Electus announced in June 2012 that they have teamed up with Laura Vitale and chef Duff Goldman to host web series for their new premium content on YouTube. This is part of YouTube's initiative to produce its own original quality content that is designed to compete with traditional television.