Come Dine with Me - the Italian's local connection
The first ever Irish "Come Dine with Me" aired on TV3 last week - but it took some days before word broke that the colourful and controversial Italian participant - Luisa Costello - actually grew up in Mullingar.Born Luisa Toselli, the 25 year old is a daughter of Giuseppe and Costanza Toselli, who own the Roma café on Mount Street.Now living in Cork where she works in technical support, Luisa got married last year.The most memorable character on the five-night series, vegetarian Luisa caused a stir amongst the four other contestants on the first night of the series, when she told them she had moved to Cork just three years earlier - leading another contestant, Helena Crowley-Hayes to sneer afterwards: "If she's Italian, I'm Hyacinth Bucket".Openly competitive, and honest in her admission that she wanted to win the show, Luisa refused to cook meat dishes for her guests, due to her commitment to vegitarianism, which she adopted four years ago. The other guests admitted they weren't accustomed to cooking vegetarian food, and struggled to come up with dishes that Luisa would like.Interviewed during the week by Ray Darcy on his radio show, Luisa declared that taking part had been the worst experience of her life. She was upset at the amount of comment made about her in forums online, and complained that some of the editing portrayed her in a bad light.Later in the week, as interest in the show and its participants soared, Luisa declined further interviews, saying only that the week of cooking, snooping and secret scoring had been "fun".Happily, Luisa clearly did do something right, as she finished with a respectable 26 points, but she failed to win the â¬1,000 top prize, which went to her arch rival, Helena Bucket - sorry Crowley-Hayes.The programme is proving a major success for TV3, as 699,000 viewers tuned in on the first night, with high viewing figures continuing throughout the week.With 30 Irish episodes of the programme filmed for TV3, Come Dine With Me Ireland, continues weekdays at 9 pm on TV3 over the summer.