This is just one woman’s attempt to cook all of the recipes in the Barefoot Contessa cookbooks by Ina Garten. For answers to questions about how or why I’m doing this, or who I am, see the Frequently Asked Questions page.
If you aren’t familiar with Ina Garten, please allow me the pleasure of introducing her to you. Known as “The Barefoot Contessa” on her Food Network program, she educates her audience about cooking and entertaining. I haven’t met her, but I feel like I’ve “known” her since before she found fame on television (cue the creepy stalker music now). When I was in law school, cooking and entertaining were like therapy to me. I even subscribed to Martha Stewart Living magazine and pored over its pages as most teenage girls devour fashion magazines. Within those pretty, glossy pages, Ina Garten appeared in a guest piece with her fabulous Flag Cake. When I saw it, I had to make it. I had never been tempted to try to make anything red, white, and blue before – the recipes featured in summertime Cool Whip ads in the Sunday circular never appealed to me. But this cake was different: full of butter and sour cream and made from scratch, I knew it would be good. And I was right. At the time, I was working as an intern for the federal government in Washington, D.C., and I decided to make the cake for my coworkers before the Independence Day weekend. (Little did I know that Ms. Garten was herself a federal government employee in Washington, several years prior to my short stint there.) The cake was huge, and my roommate took pity on me and drove me to work that morning, fearing that the cake would perish at the hands of a clumsy commuter on my usual bus-and-Metro route. I brought the cake, along with a simple butter knife to cut it, through the metal detectors and up to my office. My colleagues were impressed: not only did I bake a (huge) cake, but I had somehow managed to sneak a butter knife past the security guards. Had I known that the (somewhat dull) knife was verboten, I probably would not have even attempted to bring it. This was prior to 9/11/2001, and I sometimes wonder if the cake itself would even make it through security these days. The cake – and its cutting – were a success, and at the end of the summer internship, my coworkers presented me with two cookbooks as parting gifts. (I probably should have taken that, along with many other things, as a sign that perhaps I was more cut out to be in the kitchen than in the courtroom.)
Around the same time that I was in law school, Ina Garten began publishing cookbooks, and I was hooked. I loved her style, and the food always tasted great. The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook (1999), The Barefoot Contessa Parties! (2001), and The Barefoot Contessa Family Style (2002) were easily enough followed, and with gusto. When Barefoot in Paris (2004) was published, I had my doubts, never having ventured into French cooking before. I was pleasantly surprised by the simplicity of the recipes and their delicious results. (Besides, what else did I have to do? I was a newlywed with no children. The cooking gave me a welcome respite from my sometimes tedious, sometimes stressful job.) Those first four cookbooks have been so much a part of my life in the kitchen that they feel like good friends now, and the pictures are so familiar that sometimes I feel as though I’ve prepared a recipe just because I’ve looked at them so many times. I’ve even thrown parties for an excuse to make vast quantities of Barefoot recipes. When her television program premiered, there was no turning back. I’m still becoming familiar with the most recent cookbooks, Barefoot Contessa at Home (2006) and Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics (2008), but the little I’ve cooked from them has yielded very favorable results.
My husband (who also fills the roles of best friend, dishwasher, cheerleader, and master tastetester) and 20-month-old son (cute, but picky) will sometimes be featured.
I’m excited to get started. Welcome to the Project!
4 Comments
October 2, 2009 at 2:40 am
This is so exciting. Who is going to play you in the movie?!
October 2, 2009 at 1:11 pm
So exciting! I didn’t realize it was up and going already! I’ll be watching and I expect a dinner invite.
October 2, 2009 at 1:49 pm
Can’t wait to see how this goes!! If you ever need a sous chef, there is another Ina devotee across town ready to lend a hand!!
October 2, 2009 at 5:52 pm
[...] mentioned that I cooked as therapy in law school. During that time, I perfected the art of pie crust. Not surprisingly, I had [...]