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In my effort to transform into Food Network babe Giada De Laurentiis, I started myself on a steady diet of her dishes. Surely, honey-dripped ricotta cheesecake and plump center-cut pork chops with fennel and caper sauce are the cure for the sensual crisis that is 30-something motherhood.

Not that I don’t love my brood of three, but sweat shirts and frozen chicken nuggets (even ones from Whole Foods) are minefields that threaten to sap the sensuality out of everyday life. I may not live in Tuscany or Andalusia, but I figure if I start acting like it, I might find the antidote for a life of weekend soccer games and freezer-to-microwave dinners.

So, instead of a Sunday pot roast last weekend, I turned to short ribs with tagliatelle from 36-year-old Giada, the granddaughter of Italian film director Dino de Laurentiis whose thin frame, perfect hair and from-here-to-eternity cleavage make her a winning role model. Funny, it used to be Cokie Roberts.

Sure enough, she wasn’t faking the “oohing” and “ahhing” over her dish at the close of a recent episode of “Everyday Italian.” The recipe was a slow-cooked, earthy miracle. It also led to my discovery of beef short ribs. Widely available, short ribs often get the short shrift by grill-happy southerners with the jones for pork. But, what a find! In this recipe, they’re braised for three hours in aromatic vegetables, tomatoes, wine, and beef stock until they fall off the bone. Then they’re shredded with two forks and returned to the rich, deep gravy. The whole thing gets tossed with tagliatelle (fettucine works well, too). In this recipe, bittersweet chocolate, not Parmesan, is shaved on top.

Beef short ribs are a great value and easy to find. For homemade dried pasta, check out Fresina’s fresinas.com in Drusilla Shopping Center, a locally-grown pasta company that a surprising number of Baton Rougeans have yet to discover.