Ina Garten
Ina Garten
Ina Rosenberg Garten is an American author and host of the Food Network program Barefoot Contessa, and a former staff member of the White House Office of Management and Budget. Known for designing recipes with an emphasis on fresh ingredients and time-saving tips, she has been noted by Martha Stewart, Oprah Winfrey, and Patricia Wells for her cooking and home entertaining...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionChef
Date of Birth2 February 1948
CityBrooklyn, NY
CountryUnited States of America
There's something really wonderful about a party where you help yourself. Of course, first you get what you really want. But 'family style' service also really encourages people to connect with one another.
If it's a cocktail party, I generally make five or six different things, and I try to choose recipes that feel like a meal: a chicken thing, a fish or shrimp thing, maybe two vegetable things, and I think it's fun to end the cocktail party with a sweet thing.
I use other cookbooks for inspiration. I must say I tend to cook from my own cookbooks for parties.
I don't like sitting at a table that's too large, where everyone is too far apart. That's a party killer.
The most important thing for having a party is that the hostess is having fun. I'm very organized. I make a plan for absolutely everything. I never have anything that has to be cooked while the guests are there. The only thing I might have to do is take something out of the oven and carve it.
I learned that the hardest party to pull off successfully is Saturday night dinner. This meal is expected to be elaborate: appetizers, first course, dinner, dessert, and coffee. People arrive at 7:30 or 8 p.m. and stay for hours - definitely past my bedtime - and they all go home exhausted.
I try to greet my friends with a drink in my hand, a warm smile on my face, and great music in the background, because that's what gets a dinner party off to a fun start.
You can get bogged down in a recipe that's got a lot of steps and a million ingredients, and it takes all day to make. And then you realize, you've just got one dish. For Thanksgiving, you want an abundance of choices, and so you want dishes that you can put together really quickly, but that doesn't mean less flavor.
I think the best shortcut is to choose really simple recipes. Because I think you can make simple recipes that are as delicious as complicated ones.
The planning is everything. Deciding which dishes you're going to prepare can turn into the make-or-break decision five days later, when you actually serve the meal.
It's so important that you don't put the stuffing in the bird, where in order for the stuffing to get cooked you have to overcook the turkey. It's better to do it on the side.
My extravagance is my garden - it's the first thing I look at every morning when I wake up. It gives me so much pleasure.
I've lived in the Hamptons since 1978, when I first bought my store Barefoot Contessa.
People have more fun if they don't eat so much they have to be taken home in an ambulance.