Garten has been guided by the principle that people want to eat t things they know, but better-lavishly executed comfort food.
On a June evening that was pleasantly warm in East Hampton and too hot almost everywhere else, Ina Garten and her husband, Jeffrey, picked me up for dinner in a Mini Cooper convertible. It was one of many on the roads of Long Island’s East End. (“There was a Mini showroom in Southampton,” Garten, who has lived in East Hampton since 1985, later told me. “If it was a nice day, you went over and bought one.”) Garten’s is cream-colored, which suits her role as America’s reigning queen of tastefully deployed butterfat. For almost twenty years, Garten ran a food store in the Hamptons called the Barefoot Contessa, which catered to vacationing New York and Hollywood élites; then, starting in 1999, she published a series of best-selling cookbooks and starred in a show on the Food Network which turned her into the beloved national figure she has comfortably remained. From the beginning, her style was indulgent and inviting rather than polished and showy. “She’s the aunt that everybody wishes they had,” Kerry Diamond, the founder of the food magazine Cherry Bombe, told me. “She’s funny. She’s rich. She’ll let you eat the chocolate cake your mother said you couldn’t have.”
I had come to East Hampton to spend a few days with Garten in her domain, in anticipation of “Be Ready When the Luck Happens,” a memoir she co-wrote with Deborah Davis, which Crown will publish in October. “We are VERY casual so don’t pack any evening gowns!” Garten had advised in an e-mail. “xxxx Ina.” She offered to lend me the Mini during my stay, and, when I declined, to pick me up from the Jitney, which is what a bus is called in the Hamptons.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der September 09, 2024-Ausgabe von The New Yorker.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der September 09, 2024-Ausgabe von The New Yorker.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
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YULE RULES
“Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point.”
COLLISION COURSE
In Devika Rege’ first novel, India enters a troubling new era.
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Is the twentieth-century novel a genre unto itself?
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Pain and pleasure at a tattoo convention.
HEAVY SNOW HAN KANG
Kyungha-ya. That was the entirety of Inseon’s message: my name.
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Reckoning with Donald Trump's return to power.
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Whether you’re horrifying your teen with nauseating sex-ed analogies or watching TikToks while your toddler eats a bagel from the subway floor, face it: you’re flailing in the vast chasm of your child’s relentless needs.
COLOR INSTINCT
Jadé Fadojutimi, a British painter, sees the world through a prism.
THE FAMILY PLAN
The pro-life movement’ new playbook.
President for Sale - A survey of today's political ads.
On a mid-October Sunday not long ago sun high, wind cool-I was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for a book festival, and I took a stroll. There were few people on the streets-like the population of a lot of capital cities, Harrisburg's swells on weekdays with lawyers and lobbyists and legislative staffers, and dwindles on the weekends. But, on the façades of small businesses and in the doorways of private homes, I could see evidence of political activity. Across from the sparkling Susquehanna River, there was a row of Democratic lawn signs: Malcolm Kenyatta for auditor general, Bob Casey for U.S. Senate, and, most important, in white letters atop a periwinkle not unlike that of the sky, Kamala Harris for President.
