The Barefoot Contessa Ina Garten's recipe: Chilly disdain for leukemia patient Enzo Pereda

SIX-YEAR-OLD Enzo Pereda is battling acute lymphoblastic leukemia. From his sickbed, he'd rest in his mother's arms and watch Ina Garten ("The Barefoot Contessa") on the Food Network.

Enzo loved her show and wanted to meet her. Last year, the Make-A-Wish Foundation reached out to Garten, but the Contessa, considered a "good friend" of Make-A-Wish, told them her schedule was too busy to meet the boy.

So Enzo waited. And waited. When Make-A-Wish came back this year with a reminder about his request, Garten's representatives responded with a definite no, saying the Contessa can't fill every request she receives.

Enzo's mother kept a blog at angelsforenzo.com. When she posted how disappointed Enzo was that the Barefoot Contessa twice declined to meet him, a reader forwarded the snub to TMZ.com and ABC News. The rejection devastated Enzo. He asked his parents, "Why doesn't she want to meet me?" It's a question lots of people began asking. The story has become a PR nightmare for Garten.

IN AN ATTEMPT to stem the backlash, she hastily reconsidered and offered to meet Enzo. His family declined the halfhearted offer, saying they didn't want to expose their son to more heartbreak. Instead, they are focusing on his new wish: to swim with the dolphins.

Garten's cold attitude is inexplicable. The Contessa has time to star on her own show, write cookbooks and live the life of a highly paid celebrity chef, but she's too busy to meet a sick boy?

With regrets to Charles Barkley, yes, celebrities are role models. If your paycheck comes from the dollars of the public who watch your shows, buy your books and support the advertisers on your program, there's a minimum obligation to acknowledge your public. Even if Garten was inundated with requests, as her people claimed (and I find hard to believe), I think a wish from a 6-year-old with leukemia deserves special consideration.

Even if she wasn't interested in meeting this boy, she could have picked up the phone and called, or sent him a video greeting.

A few people on my radio show blamed his parents for mentioning the multiple rejections on their blog because it put Garten in a bad position. But the parents weren't the ones who brought this to the attention of the press. And it doesn't explain Garten's cold behavior.

I can't imagine what it must be like to have a child with a life-threatening illness. The emotional anguish of seeing your child suffer is beyond words. As a parent, you want to do anything that will bring hope and happiness to your child, even for a moment.

Perhaps the fact that Garten doesn't have children of her own prevents her from having compassion for Enzo's simple request. Maybe she's too busy searching food shops in her beloved Hamptons looking for the really good vanilla to realize how devastating her rejections were to her youngest fan.

In an effort to give Garten some PR cover, Make-A-Wish issued a statement to defuse the widespread criticism. The organization said it has a "very strong relationship with Ina Garten, a celebrity granter who has generously made herself available to grant a wish in the past . . . we are grateful to her for her support of our mission."

Reading between the lines of that statement, it doesn't sound like Garten has granted any actual wishes for the sick kids Make-A-Wish supports. Yet, until now, she's enjoyed the good will of being associated with a wonderful nonprofit without having to extend herself and donate any time. It's disingenuous.

On the other hand, WWE rasslin' champ John Cena was recently honored by Make-A-Wish for granting more than 200 wishes. On Sunday, he hosted more than 30 Make-A-Wish kids and their families as his guests for WrestleMania. The kids met him and other WWE wrestlers at a special pizza party and received tickets for WrestleMania. Wrestling may be fake, but Cena's compassion and concern for sick children is totally real.

Many people who have tried to defend Garten say celebrities can't fulfill every request. But a sick child's wish isn't ordinary.

I can think of nothing more important. Even if she wasn't interested in a full-fledged meeting, she could have done some type of small gesture that would have made this boy happy. If you're a celebrity and don't believe in charity, then don't "lend your name" to a nonprofit and enjoy the good will of your phony philanthropy. Rejecting a Make-A-Wish cancer patient twice takes a special degree of coldness.

Many of my callers said they are going to contact the Food Network and the advertisers of the Barefoot Contessa's show.

They hope their protests over Garten's rejection of Enzo's request will pressure the network to cancel her show. I hope this is one wish that gets granted.

Teacher-turned-talk-show-host Dom Giordano is heard on WPHT/1210 AM. Contact him at askdomg@aol.com.