The Cookbook Ina Garten Recommends Beginners Start With - Mashed (2024)

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The Cookbook Ina Garten Recommends Beginners Start With - Mashed? ›

Garten answered her fan from Nebraska's pressing question by suggesting she start with "The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook." Garten wrote, "I always recommend that beginner cooks start with 'The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook,' which is filled with the easy recipes that I used to make at my specialty food store in East Hampton ...

Barefoot Contessa cookbooks

She carried on the Barefoot Contessa name in her 1999 sleeper bestseller, The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook. The book far exceeded both Garten's and publisher Clarkson Potter's expectations, containing the recipes that made her store successful.

Her eating, she says, is “pretty orderly, actually”: “I pretty much have toast and coffee for breakfast;” tea every day at 10:30 a.m. — not a minute earlier or later; soup for lunch (Italian wedding soup, on the day of the recording); and for dinner, she and her husband, Jeffrey, go out with friends or order in.

Garten answered her fan from Nebraska's pressing question by suggesting she start with "The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook." Garten wrote, "I always recommend that beginner cooks start with 'The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook,' which is filled with the easy recipes that I used to make at my specialty food store in East Hampton ...

If you're looking for a Barefoot Contessa-approved set, check out the Maison pattern from Crate and Barrel, a mainstay Ina has said she owns over the years. Another, pricier option is the White Dinnerware set from Pillivuyt, a French brand Ina recommends for serving ware as well.

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.

The "Barefoot Contessa" star has become beloved for her foolproof dishes that are accessible to home chefs at any skill level. And Garten credits this with the fact that she always tests out her dishes with an inexperienced cook. "Every time I make a recipe, I watch someone else make it," she told Sifton.

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…”

Fish head stew is a no. As for herbs, she absolutely despises cilantro, and you won't find much of it used in her recipes. Beverages that she's not okay with are pumpkin spice lattes, because they don't taste enough like coffee, and kombucha, because she's not a huge fan of fermented fare.

What oatmeal does Ina Garten use? ›

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.

When it comes to two cooking legends, Ina Garten and Julia Child, their minds agree on a strong distaste for one ingredient: cilantro. It seems that both chefs have a particularly strong distaste for the herb, also known as coriander.

She is currently working on her next cookbook. Her long-awaited memoir, Be Ready When the Luck Happens will be published by Crown on October 01, 2024. In 2002 Food Network approached Ina Garten to do a cooking show based on her cookbooks and her love of entertaining.

Barefoot Contessa hasn't produced new episodes since 2021, and anyone who still has cable knows that Food Network doesn't show Garten's TV shows as often as we'd like. However, Garten recently announced that she's working on new episodes for the cooking network.

In 1996, she finally decided it was time to move on and relinquished control of the business to a pair of employees. Although Garten stepped back from her store, she retained ownership of the property and built herself an office right above the old shop.

Gordon Ramsay's best recipes include Beef Wellington, Coq au Vin, Beef Stroganoff, Chicken Piccata, Rack of Lamb, Baked Salmon with Lemon and Dill, Shrimp Scampi, Beef and Guinness Stew, Spaghetti Carbonara, and Beef Burgundy.

Cuisinart Cup Pro Custom 11 Food Processor

In a video for Food Network, Ina shared that she uses her food processor for things like potatoes, breadcrumbs and even thinly-sliced Brussels sprouts.