same issues.” Her soul was at home, where she taught herself to cook with Julia Child’s revolutionary book Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Garten relished the satisfaction of dreaming up a meal in the morning and getting it done that night. In 1978, she purchased a tiny


food shop in Westhampton Beach, N.Y., called the Barefoot Contessa, after the earthy (and unshod) hero- ine of the 1954 movie of the same name. The shop was so popular that she relocated to a larger, 3,000-square-foot space in neigh- boring East Hampton, which she filled with mountains of lobster salad, cases of cupcakes and muf- fins, and a table overflowing with just-baked baguettes. “The store had to feel like a


party,” she explains. “The music was cranked up, the coffee brewing, the ribs and chicken were on the barbecue. So it smelled good. And the screen door would slam shut like a real summer house. I created a space that was fun!” Jeffrey still remembers the look


on his wife’s face the first day cus- tomers were lined up down the block. “She was beyond happy. You can tell with someone you love. … You just know, My God, this is ex- actly what she wants to do!” In front of the cheese case one


day, Garten met Martha Stewart, who became a friend and mentor as Garten soared to success. “The first year, I was asked to cater a party at [New York Times food editor] Craig Claiborne’s house, and I thought, ‘Oh my God, I’ve made it!’” Garten sold the store in 1996,


but kept its name as her brand. For her, Barefoot Contessa represents the place where she discovered her calling. When I ask her what word describes her best, she eventually settles on hostess.


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


When we moved to the porch for


cocktails, Garten served thyme- seasoned Marcona almonds and a small bowl of gourmet potato chips. The menu for dinner—served at Garten’s cozy kitchen table—in- cluded juicy slices of grilled steak (coffee-rubbed rib eyes); heirloom tomatoes drizzled with olive oil; and sweet corn picked that morning at a local farm, then sliced off the cob and sautéed in butter, salt, and pep- per. The decadence came with the trio of desserts: Limoncello Cheese- cake, homemade Rum Raisin Ice Cream, and Mocha Chocolate Mousse. When Garten asked which we preferred, we told her all three. “I do feel enormous pressure


when people come here,” she tells me during our interview, “because they expect it to be really good.” Jeffrey, who has been with Gar-


“Ina loves to have a good time, but she’s also incredibly rigorous,” says husband Jeffrey. “She is like a scientist in the kitchen.”


“To me, entertaining is all about connecting. It’s being with people.” That’s why her dinner parties are in the kitchen (“so if I have to get something, I don’t have to leave the party”) and why she invites no more than six people (“so you can really connect with each other”). Enter- taining isn’t just about the food you serve, she says; it’s about the envi- ronment you create. That was certainly true at our


dinner last summer, where the living room’s ambience set a casually ele- gant tone: rich aromas wafting from the kitchen, an antique coat rack in one corner, a cluster of blue hydran- geas (from her garden) in another.


YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT INA


1. She loads the dishwasher her- self after every meal. (Her hus- band Jeffrey is on garbage duty.)


2. She used to win science prizes in high school.


3. You’ll never see recipes for en- trails or calf’s liver in her books. “Why not make a book with 85 rec- ipes that everyonewants to eat?”


4. She and Jeffrey have an apart- ment in Paris. But they stopped spending Thanksgiving there be- cause Ina couldn’t find fresh cran- berries one year.


5. When she’s cranky, “a nice tuna sandwich on rye with lettuce and mayonnaise” makes her feel better.


ten since they were both in their teens, knows what goes into her party preparations: “Ina loves to have a good time, but she’s also in- credibly rigorous,” he explains. “She is like a scientist in the kitchen— very precise, very disciplined. She writes everything down, follows instructions to the decimal, and is always experimenting. She’ll try something six different ways. Her experiments are very calculated.” And well defined. “No more than


three flavors in a dish, each well bal- anced with the other,” she says. “And it has to be clear what you’re eating. If it’s a plum tart, you should know there are plums in there, and I do something with cassis that enhances the flavor of plums. I’m always thinking, ‘How do I bring out the intrinsic flavors of this dish?’” Her genius is maximizing the familiar, to make it pop. Other chefs “make things too complicated, and they try to impress people at dinner,” she says. “I don’t want to impress people


COVER: BRIAN DOBEN FOR PARADE; STYLING, CHRISTINE HAHN; HAIR, ERICA MCSWEENEY; MAKEUP, TINA TOSCANO, NECKLACE, MISH NEW YORK. PHOTOS, PREVIOUS SPREAD AND THIS PAGE: MELANIE DUNEA/CPI SYNDICATION


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16