Monica Geller character on "Friends"", citing her cleanliness, bluntness and role as "the heart of the group", among others. Loiacono enthused that Monica "didn't just have one defining aspect; she had many, and they were all equally hilarious. Not to mention, her ambition and vulnerability resulted in some of the show's most touching and heartbreaking moments". Additionally, Loiacono dismissed the fact that Cox has never received an Emmy Award nomination for her performance as Monica as "downright criminal". In 2015, HitFix wrote a similar article entitled "5 Reasons Monica Geller is the Best "Friends" Friend", published in tandem with Cox's 51 birthday.
Monica Geller several cooking-related jobs throughout the series, having worked at five different restaurants, a trend that nearly coincides with her constant rotation of boyfriends in an ongoing search for the "perfect match". Michael Hogan of "The Guardian" believes that the character's "competitive, perfectionist, obsessive-compulsive nature made her ideally suited to a career as a chef." However, her love of cooking and food is also responsible for her having been extremely overweight as a child, throughout high school and college. The running gag of an overweight Monica is often used as a recurring backstory for the character throughout the series, first explored