Ina Garten to me is the most credible TV chef, bar none. Nigella Lawson may have all the sensual moves of a goddess. Martha Stewart may have the needed obsessive compulsiveness to run a well-stocked kitchen, pantry, and business empire.
But Ina, pleasantly plump Ina, lends believability to the things she preaches and teaches. It’s that full, Rabelaisian figure testifying that she loves what she does and enjoys what she tastes and eats.
In her memoir Be Ready When the Luck Happens (Crown Publishing), she relives some of the neglect and abuse she had undergone as a child and adolescent—for bad behavior, her father would hit her or pull her hair. As she cried for hours in her room, she thought that she had no future. Her self-esteem was brought down so low that what played in her head was, “You’ll never amount to anything.”
It was the ’50s, so an “overly regimented childhood” was not unusual. The author described her family as having had everything material, except the emotional support she and her brother needed.
Ina and Jeffrey Garten
Until one day at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, as she stood outside the library to admire its architecture, she caught the eye of a freshman who was studying inside. Jeffrey Garten was instantly smitten after he looked up and out, but it was his roommate who was going to have a date with Ina.
Fast forward: introductions and letters were exchanged, but it always crossed Ina’s mind, “What if Jeffrey had picked a different seat, not by the window? What if he had never looked outside?”
She realized that “fate had a pretty fragile grip on this precarious chain of events, like many events in my life…” Even her strict father commended her decision to marry Jeffrey on her sophomore year in college as “the smartest thing you’ve ever done.” Such was her husband’s appeal to the family.
And to her, too. He was “the first feminist I knew; he believed women had as much potential as men and I had a responsibility to myself to fulfill mine.” Even if it meant studying to be a pilot out of curiosity. That didn’t entirely work out, although she learned how to fly. On the ground, she worked in a women’s clothing store, then in a bookstore, and took on several distractions, from the museums to the opera, while her husband was stationed overseas as a Green Beret.
She worked for a time in an employment agency called Body Shop until, to her consternation, she discovered that this wasn’t engaged in car repair, but was the office for a strip joint!
Meanwhile, with friends she made, she learned to make quiches and patés, the staples of the ’70s.
Ina’s flair for words rises when she describes food in her travels, like when she and husband were young backpacking nomads in Europe: “Olives—green, black, brown, and deep purple, briny and garnished with garlic, lemon, and slivers of red peppers. Paté—every imaginable form, from the classic liver…to ducks, wild boar, and venison. And the charcuterie! Ham studded with rosemary; garlicky saucisson; sold by the tranche, or slice. Not a piece of plastic wrap anywhere, and best of all, we could ask for a taste of anything, so we felt like we’d had a meal before we even sat down for lunch.”
Through trial and error, she learned that hosting parties didn’t automatically mean elaborate meals. She wrote: “Successful entertaining didn’t have to be about proving I could master a four-page recipe that had ingredients that were recipes in themselves. A party was about connecting with your friends and having a good time; food designed to impress was just beside the point—I was beginning to realize that it was counterproductive. A simple dinner with delicious food was the best way to have a good party.”
The deli that made Ina Garten famous
When Ina bought the deli shop Barefoot Contessa in the Hamptons, the lessons she picked up from her various jobs showed her how to run a good team. (The name is from an old Humphrey Bogart and Ava Gardner movie.) Instead of ditching the name, she realized that barefoot gave a casual, beachy vibe, while contessa sounded “earthy and elegant.”
There were periods of physical separation between Ina and Jeffrey, until they mutually decided on a trial parting. But she had Barefoot Contessa to keep her especially busy with the demand for 1,000 baguettes daily. The experience left her with a strong sense of identity that helped with the eventual reconciliation with her husband, he who said, “Do what you love. If you love it, you’ll be really good at it.” It felt like she was falling in love with him again.
Cocktail hour
As she grew in stature, too, as a cookbook author and Food Network host, celebrities like Taylor Swift and actress Jennifer Garner swore by her recipes and credit her for showing them the way around a kitchen. But there was one man who wasn’t impressed by the design and layout of The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook—none other than the photographer of such icons as John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe, Richard “Dick” Avedon, a personal friend. He told her brutally, “It’s the worst I’ve ever seen.”
Thank goodness, he was a charming man, while the book continues to sell. So good were the sales that from the royalties alone, she was able to buy and restore an apartment in Paris.
Would that all who slave in the kitchen have the persistence and luck of an Ina Garten.
Be Ready When the Luck Happens is available at Fully Booked.
