chestnut-brown hair and carefree bangs frame her heart-shaped face and raspberry-rosy cheeks. Her serene voice regularly erupts into laughter, mostly at herself. (As Tuschman puts it, “She is charm- ingly unaware of her own charisma, and of the spell she casts on people.”) We are chatting in the sunny


inner at Ina Garten’s house tops the wish list of countless home cooks. It’s an invitation so coveted that Tina Fey’s Liz Lemon once fantasized about it on an episode of 30 Rock. I’m lucky because Garten is my friend, and I’ve dined at her home enough times to know that her exquisite feasts are matched


only by her bubbly charm and quick wit. So when she emailed last summer to remind me of our upcoming Saturday night date, I was only half-kidding when I shot back, “Have been fasting for three days in anticipation.” Her merry reply promised even more indulgence. “LOL!! This is good because I’m testing three desserts and none of them is blueberries!” The sweets were sumptuous (more on those below), and several weeks


later, whenParade asked me to interview Garten, I jumped at the chance to learn more about the life of my friend before she became the woman every- one knows as the Barefoot Contessa. At 66, Garten is safely enthroned in the culinary pantheon as a goddess


of good taste for legions of devotees seeking fresh flavors and easy enter- taining. Some 8.7 million copies of her first eight cookbooks are in print, and six have beenNew York Times best sellers. The newest,Make it Ahead, will be released this week with recipes for party-perfect delicacies like Jala- peño Margaritas and Tri-Berry Crumbles that you can prepare before guests arrive (so you’re not stuck in the kitchen when the doorbell rings). Garten’s award-winning half-hour cooking show (Barefoot Contessa, Sun-


Topping Ina’s list of must-have ingredients if marooned on a desert island: butter, “plus a backup butter


in case the first one melts.”


days, 10 a.m.) is the Food Network’s top-rated morning fare, largely because “Ina makes cooking approachable,” says Bob Tuschman, the network’s gen- eral manager and senior vice president. “Instead of being a chef in a white coat and toque, she’s someone who invites you into the kitchen and makes it a fun place to be.” One of her favorite catchphrases: “How easy is that?” The Barefoot Contessa’s loyal fans (she has 79,000 followers on Twitter


and 615,000 likes on Facebook) are known to track down the same brands of cooking utensils she uses on TV—from her cheese planer to her favorite ramekins—and even adopt her open shelving and the neutral tones of her décor for their own kitchens. Off camera and away from the chopping board, Garten wears her celeb-


rity lightly. The day of our interview, her short, ample body (“We’d all like to look like Gwyneth Paltrow, but we don’t,” she says good-naturedly) is smart- ly cloaked in her uniform dark pants and crisp shirt, collar flipped up. Glossy


kitchen of her brown-shingled home in East Hampton, N.Y.—a seaside community blessed with bountiful farmland, and in the peak summer months, popular with ce- lebrity visitors. I’m finding it hard to believe that while Garten was growing up in Brooklyn and Con- necticut, her mother never let her near the stove. “She was a dietitian by training


and her food was very basic, health food–oriented, but extreme,” Gar- ten says. “Broiled chicken, canned peas. An apple was considered des- sert. No carbohydrates.” Or butter. She pauses to giggle. “That’s why I make chocolate cake!” This apple fell far from the tree. Garten’s taste buds were awak-


ened in France, during a four- month camping trip that she took with her husband, Jeffrey, after he got out of the army. “I couldn’t be- lieve how good the ingredients were. I’d make a dinner out of peaches and brie and bread.” And she’d make it on a budget of $5 a day, over a gas stove outside their Day-Glo orange pup tent. Once they were back home in


Washington, D.C., where Jeffrey worked at the White House and the State Department under presidents Ford and Carter, Garten became a budget analyst at the Office of Man- agement and Budget. But she hated the slow pace of bureaucracy. “I worked in Washington for four years,” she says, “and nothing hap- pened. They’re still working on the


OCTOBER 26, 2014 | 7 © PARADE Publications 2014. All rights reserved


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