Ina Garten Quotes (Author of Barefoot Contessa at Home) (2024)

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Ina Garten Quotes (Author of Barefoot Contessa at Home)? ›

Ina Garten Quotes

You can be miserable before you have a cookie and you can be miserable after you eat a cookie but you can't be miserable while you are eating a cookie. Food is about nurturing: not only physical but also emotional nurturing.

Ina Garten Quotes

You can be miserable before you have a cookie and you can be miserable after you eat a cookie but you can't be miserable while you are eating a cookie. Food is about nurturing: not only physical but also emotional nurturing.

Early on, Garten had considered renaming her store: Barefoot Contessa had been the previous owner's childhood nickname, and Garten had never seen the 1954 Ava Gardner movie it evoked.

Garten is Jewish by birth and heritage, as is her husband, but rarely refers to her religion and ethnicity, though they are showcased through the inclusion of classic Jewish cooking in her television show and cookbooks, when she makes such dishes as rugelach, challah, and brisket.

In 1978, shortly after she turned 30, Garten gave up her DC life and decided to buy a small specialty food shop called Barefoot Contessa.

Not just any old oatmeal will do when it comes to the Barefoot Contessa. "I've had the same thing for breakfast every single day for ten years: coffee and McCann's quick-cooking Irish oatmeal," Garten told Bon Appétit in a 2017 article. And her love of the stuff is well-documented.

The one meal Ina simply couldn't live without is roast chicken. She even cites it as one of the reasons her husband, Jeffrey, proposed marriage in 1968.

They divide their time living in Manhattan, East Hampton, and Paris. Registered in New York as a Democrat, Garten has contributed to the presidential campaign funds of George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, John Kerry, and Barack Obama. In 2004, she hosted a benefit for Planned Parenthood.

In 1996, I decided that it was time for a new challenge so I sold the store to the manager and the chef. At that point, with nothing to do, I built myself an office over the store and tried my hand at writing a cookbook.

Garten. Barefoot Contessa, her famous store, was located where Rag & Bone now operates. Barefoot Contessa closed permanently in 2004, but Ms. Garten still owns the building.

Why didn't Ina Garten have any children? ›

In a new interview for Julia Louis-Dreyfus' podcast, Wiser Than Me, Garten admitted that it "wasn't a struggle at all" to decide against having children. "I had no interest in having children," she told Louis-Dreyfus. "I had a terrible childhood, and it was nothing I wanted to recreate.

Her fame may be relatively quiet — she doesn't have a line of cookware, there isn't a namesake restaurant — but make no mistake: Ina Garten is a powerhouse celeb chef.

One of those places was Washington, D.C., where Garten worked as a budget analyst for presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter.

The Food Network star and her husband have been married for over 50 years. Ina Garten, 76, has called her husband Jeffrey Garten the "love of my life" — and he seems to feel the exact same way.

Barefoot Contessa Draws Its Name from a '50s Film

“So many people ask, 'What does Barefoot Contessa mean?' ” Garten wrote on her blog back in 2018. “It was the original name of my specialty food store after a movie with Ava Gardner and Humphrey Bogart. But for me, it means being both elegant and earthy…”

She is host of the Food Network program Barefoot Contessa, and was a former staff member of the Office of Management and Budget. Among her dishes are Perfect Roast Chicken, Weeknight Bolognese, French Apple Tart, and a simplified version of beef bourguignon.

It is very important that when you put something on the grill, you leave it in place to cook. If you move it around too quickly, chances are it is going to stick. For me, it's all about moderation. I don't kick things out of my diet, like carbs.

Their work has previously appeared in the Kitchn, TODAY Digital and Insider. Ina Garten never wanted children — and her husband Jeffrey Garten supported that decision.

Garten is the woman they turn to when they, as her latest cookbook is titled, want to learn how to “Cook Like a Pro.” “I've always found something very alluring about the world she creates and how she brings people together,” Heuck says. “Obviously it's about the food, but it's also about the occasion.”