Ina Rosenberg Garten (born February 2, 1948) is a chef, former caterer, cookbook author, columnist, and hostess of the Food Network program Barefoot Contessa. Renowned for demystifying fine cuisine with an emphasis on quality ingredients and timesaving tips, she has been championed by the likes of Martha Stewart, Eli Zabar, and Patricia Wells as a top authority on cooking and home entertaining.
Ina Garten | |
|---|---|
| File:InaGarten.jpg | |
| Born | February 2, 1948 |
| Education | Syracuse University, New York |
| Culinary career | |
| Cooking style | New England, French |
Television show(s) | |
Garten had little to no formal culinary training, and instead taught herself classic French and New England techniques with the aid of canonical cookbooks and relied on intuition and feedback from customers and friends to refine recipes. She was mentored chiefly by Zabar, of Eli's Manhattan and Eli's Breads fame; and domestic maven Stewart. Among her trademark dishes are cœur à la crème, celery root remoulade, pear clafouti, and a simplified version of bœuf bourguignon.
Her culinary fame began with her gourmet food store, Barefoot Contessa, and Garten parlayed this success into a string of bestselling cookbooks, magazine columns, self-branded convenience foods, and a popular Food Network television show.
Early history and education
Born in Brooklyn, New York and raised in Stamford, Connecticut, Garten was the second of two children born to her surgeon father and homemaker mother. Strongly encouraged to excel in her school career, she showed a particularly strong aptitude for science and often won local science fairs. It is notable that Garten's mother, an intellectual with an interest in opera, refused her daughter's requests to assist her in the kitchen. Garten has described her father as a lively individual with many friends, and has commented that she shares more characteristics with him than with her mother. At 15, she met future husband, Jeffrey Garten, on a trip to visit her brother at Dartmouth College. After a year of exchanging letters, they began dating when Garten turned 16. After high school, she attended Syracuse University with plans to study fashion design, but chose to change her major to economics. However, Garten abandoned her educational pursuits to marry shortly thereafter and did not obtain a degree.
Fort Bragg and Paris
In 1968, after obtaining a portion of her college education and then marrying, Garten relocated with her husband to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where she dabbled in cooking and entertaining in an effort to occupy her time while her husband served his four-year military tour. After completing his term, the couple journeyed to Paris, France for a three-month vacation that Garten has described as the birth of her love for French cuisine. Here, she experienced for the first time open-air markets, produce stands, and the quality cooking ingredients that would later become her trademark. Upon returning to the States, she began to cultivate her culinary prowess by working her way through the volumes of Julia Child's seminal cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking.
Capitol Hill
The couple once again relocated in 1972, this time to Washington D.C, where she worked in the White House and took business courses at George Washington University. Originally employed on the lower rung as a government aide, she climbed the political ladder and was assigned the position of budget analyst, which entailed writing the nuclear energy budget and policy papers on nuclear centrifuge for then-Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. Strained by the pressures of her work and the serious, mundane setting of Washington, Garten turned to cooking and entertaining in her free time, constantly arranging dinner parties at her home on the weekends. She also purchased and refurbished two homes in the Dupont Circle and Kalorama areas of Washington, then sold them on the real estate market (a process known as house flipping). The profits from these sales gave Garten adequate funds to make her next purchase, the Barefoot Contessa specialty food emporium.
Barefoot Contessa
Barefoot Contessa store
Garten would abandon government work in 1978 after spotting an ad for a specialty food store in Westhampton Beach called Barefoot Contessa. Garten made a hasty decision to purchase the store after traveling to view it, and moved to New York to assume ownership and management. The store was named by its original owner in tribute to the 1954 film starring Ava Gardner, and Garten would retain the name when she took over, as it meshed well with her idea of an "elegant but earthy" lifestyle. The store became extremely successful, bolstered by Garten's sophisticated but simple dishes, self-branded line of gourmet coffees, and party catering services, along with such employees as Anna Pump, who would later go on to establish the popular Loaves & Fishes bakery and Bridgehampton Inn. Within a year, she had moved Barefoot Contessa across the street from its original ___location to a larger property; and then, in 1985, Garten relocated the store to the newly-vacated premises of gourmet shop Dean and DeLuca in East Hampton. Here, she expanded the emporium from its original 400 square feet to over 3,000, almost seven times its original size. In this new, larger space, the store specialized in delicacies such as lobster salad, caviar, imported cheeses, and locally grown produce, and the store quickly became a gathering place for the affluent New York village. It became such a landmark for the community that director Nancy Meyers chose to use the store as one of the settings for the Jack Nicholson-Diane Keaton film Something's Gotta Give. The shop was also namechecked consistently in the press by celebrity clientele such as Steven Speilberg and Lauren Bacall. In 1996, after two decades of owning and operating, Garten again found herself seeking a change and sold the store to two employees, Amy Forst and Parker Hodges. The store was permanently closed by its new owners in 2004.
Barefoot Contessa cookbooks
Garten carried on with the Barefoot Contessa name, however, in her 1999 sleeper bestseller, The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook. Filled with elegant yet accessible recipes that made her store successful, the book far exceeded both Garten's and publisher Clarkson Potter's expectations, selling over 100,000 copies in its first year.[1] In 2001, Garten capitalized on her new-found fame and released Barefoot Contessa Parties!, which also produced excellent sales and garnered very good reviews, and followed this with Barefoot Contessa Family Style in 2002. As of 2004, the three cookbooks combined had sold over 1 million copies.[2]
Notably, Garten's cookbooks depart from the usual encyclopedic format most culinary tomes follow; and, instead, are modeled after coffee table books. Filled with lush photography, with a facing full-page picture for each recipe, detractors sometimes criticize this method as it leaves less room for recipes, particularly at the rather steep MSRP of $35 each. Nevertheless, criticism has been sparse and her cookbooks have received overall positive reviews, with fellow chef Giada De Laurentiis recently naming Garten as one of her favorite authors.[3]
Barefoot Contessa on Food Network
Also see the adjoining Wikipedia article Barefoot Contessa.
Not long after the success of The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook and Barefoot Contessa Parties!, Garten was approached by Food Network with an offer to host her own television cooking show. She rejected this proposal several times, until the London-based production company responsible for the popular Nigella Bites was assigned to the deal. Garten acquiesed to a 13-show season, and Barefoot Contessa premiered in 2002 to a very positive reception. The program focuses on hearty, guest-oriented food; and Food Network found a popular hostess in the Rubenesque, sultry-voiced Garten. Many compare her television presence to that of Martha Stewart, but with a softer edge and more nurturing, comforting manner. Approximately 1 million viewers tune in for each episode of Barefoot Contessa, and the show was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award in 2005 in the category of Best Service Show.[4]
Barefoot Contessa Pantry
In 2006, Garten launched her own line of packaged mixes, marinades, sauces, and preserves, branded as Barefoot Contessa Pantry, in conjunction with Stonewall Kitchen. These convenience foods are based on her most popular from-scratch recipes, such as Outrageous Brownies, Coconut Cupcakes, Chocolate Chunk Cookies, and Lemon Curd, and are sold through upscale shops such as Williams-Sonoma and Chicago's Fox & Obel Market Cafe.
This consistent use of the store name has led her fans to refer to her as simply "the Contessa", though she is Jewish-American by birth, not Italian, and has no royal connections.
Influences
Martha Stewart
Stewart did play an influential role in the early development of Garten's career, championing her store, recipes, and home décor, going as far as to feature both Garten's home and one of her bakery confections on 1998 and 2001 covers of her popular magazine, Martha Stewart Living. After years of being friends and co-workers, however, the two women became bitter rivals when Stewart attempted to take credit for one of Garten's recipes. When Stewart was incarcerated in 2004 on charges connected with insider trading, the press began singling out Garten as the rising grande dame of the domestic arts.[5] Garten and Stewart have reportedly mended their relationship, with Stewart writing a glowing foreword for The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook; and, in turn, Garten penning several columns on entertaining and cooking for Stewart's magazine. Stewart's sister, Laura Plimpton, has also been featured as a party guest on Garten's Barefoot Contessa.
Eli Zabar
Garten has credited Eli Zabar with the inspiration of her main cooking method, in which "all you have to do is cook to enhance the ingredients."[6] Zabar is famed for his string of gourmet markets and bakeries located in New York's Upper East Side, and is often seen as a guest on Garten's Barefoot Contessa. She frequently recommends his baked goods and produce to her viewers, and has filmed a segment on ___location at his flagship store, Eli's Vinegar Factory.
Politics and opinions
Garten is believed to be pro-choice, as she served as hostess of the 16th Annual Planned Parenthood Hudson Peconic Benefit. However, she has never made any official statement about her stance on this issue.
She is also considered somewhat of a gay icon by many fans, as her Food Network show frequently features appearances by those in her social set, which is populated by many openly gay men. Garten also made the following statement in her Barefoot Contessa Family Style cookbook:
"...we all know that families now aren't necessarily like Ozzie and Harriet (it turns out Ozzie and Harriet's family wasn't all Ozzie and Harriet)... family has a traditional context, but today it's not as simple as two parents with 2.3 kids... it's about relationships... it's about people who are bound together by love and a sense of being responsible for one another... it's spouses with no children, like Jeffrey and me... it's a group of women who meet to cook dinner together once a month... it's a one-parent family with adopted children... it's two men who've made a life together... at the end of the day, all we have is love... getting love, but even more, feeling love..."[7]
Again, however, it must be noted that Garten has made no official statement on her stance regarding gay rights or the gay community in general.
Garten has contributed significant amounts to the presidential campaign funds of George Bush, Sr., Bill Clinton, and John Kerry.[8]
Media and personal life
After much critical acclaim and excellent sales of her first three literary efforts, she went on to write another bestselling cookbook, Barefoot in Paris, and several columns for O, The Oprah Magazine. House Beautiful, a popular women's magazine that focuses on decorating and the domestic arts, also features a monthly column entitled "Ask the Barefoot Contessa", in which Garten doles out cooking, entertaining, and lifestyle tips.[9] She also launched a small line of notecards and journals to complement her books, and wrote the forewords for Kathleen King's Tate's Bake Shop Cookbook and Rori Trovato's Dishing With Style. One of her signature recipes, lemon roast chicken with croutons, was featured in The Best American Recipes 2005-2006.
In 2005, she announced that she has signed a three-year contract with Food Network to continue her cooking show, and will release two more cookbooks following Barefoot Contessa at Home. Garten was reportedly awarded the most lucrative contract for a culinary author to date, signing a multimillion dollar deal for multiple books.[10] She also purchased a pied a terre in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, and has filmed an episode of her cooking show on ___location there. Her road to fame and personal life were recently explored in the Food Network series, Chefography, an hour-long documentary similar to the A&E program Biography. The show featured candid interviews with Garten's husband, close friends, and former clients.
It is notable that Garten has been approached several times to develop her own branded magazine, a line of furniture, and a chain of boutiques (reminiscent of Stewart's Omnimedia), but has declined these offers, stating she has no interest in further complicating her life.
Marriage
She remains married to Jeffrey Garten, former Undersecretary of Commerce for International Trade and former dean of the Yale School of Management, now Juan Trippe Professor in the Practice of International Trade, Finance, and Business. Her husband can also frequently be spotted on her cooking show, assisting her with menial tasks or sampling the dishes she has created. The Gartens recently celebrated their 38th wedding anniversary, and divide their time between Southport, Connecticut, East Hampton, New York, and Paris, France. They have no children.
References
- ^ Trends, Publishing (2000). "Chefs Shake Up Cookbook Market." Publishing Trends.
- ^ Weinraub, Judith (2004). "Bistro Cooking, by Degrees." Washington Post.
- ^ Sagon, Candy (2005). "The Food Network's Latest It Girl." Washington Post.
- ^ Dobnik, Verena (2005). "The Barefoot Contessa Lives Her Dream Life." The Shreveport Times.
- ^ Dickerman, Sara (2003). "Move Over, Martha." Slate.
- ^ Witchel, Alex (2001). "How Difficult Is Simple?" New York Times.
- ^ Garten, Ina (2002). Barefoot Contessa Family Style. Clarkson Potter. ISBN 060961066X.
- ^ Newsmeat (2006). "Celebrity Federal Campaign Contributions." Newsmeat.
- ^ Garten, Ina (2006). "Ask the Barefoot Contessa." House Beautiful.
- ^ Danford, Natalie (2005). "Video Made the Cookbook Star." Publishers Weekly.
- Dobnik, Verena (2005). "The Barefoot Contessa: Living Her Dream Life." Portsmouth Herald.
- Garten, Ina & Stewart, Martha (1999). The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook. Clarkson Potter. ISBN 0609602195.
- Garten, Ina (2004). Barefoot in Paris. Clarkson Potter. ISBN 1400049350.
- Garten, Ina (2006). "About Ina." Barefoot Contessa Online.
- Gershenson, Gabriella (2006). "The Art of Food Porn: Getting Off Without Getting Fat." New York Press.
- Hale-Shelton, Debra (2003). "Contessa Says, Keep It Simple." Cincinnati Post.
- Katz, Carissa (2005). "Ina Garten: The Barefoot Contessa." East Hampton Star.
- Network, Food (2006). "Ina." Chefography. The E.W. Scripps Company.
- Seymour, Liz (2004). "Entertaining Barefoot." Washington Post.
- Smith, Christopher Monte (2001). "Very Interesting People: Ina Garten." BookSense.com.
- Snipes, Stephanie (2004). "Barefoot Contessa Keeps It Simple." CNN.
- Thomas, Cathy (2004). "Simply Marvelous." Orange County Register.
- Witchel, Alex (2001). "How Difficult Is Simple?" New York Times.
See also
Bibliography
- The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook (1999)
- Barefoot Contessa Parties! Ideas and Recipes for Easy Parties That Are Really Fun (2001)
- Barefoot Contessa Family Style: Easy Ideas and Recipes That Make Everyone Feel Like Family (2002)
- Barefoot in Paris (2004)
- Barefoot Contessa at Home: My Favorite Food for Your Favorite People (2006)
Filmography
- Barefoot Contessa (2002-2006)
- Chefography (2006)