Ina garden

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ina Garten (in 2006)

Ina Rosenberg Garten (born February 2, 1948 in Brooklyn , New York City ) is an American cook , cookbook author, columnist and star of a cookery show that the Food Network broadcasts in the USA under the title Barefoot Contessa . Protected by other American television greats such as Martha Stewart , Oprah Winfrey and Patricia Wells , it has earned the reputation of demonstrating sophisticated cuisine to viewers and readers in a simple and understandable way. The consistent use of the term Barefoot Contessa has contributed to their level of awareness. Her fans often refer to Ina Garten as The Contessa .

Ina Garten is not trained as a cook. Her knowledge and cooking technique first came from books on French cuisine and New England cuisine . Her early mentors include Eli Zabar , a deli operator, and Martha Stewart. Her career began with the Barefoot Contessa delicatessen store . She later worked as a columnist and published a number of cookbooks. Today she markets food products in the upper price segment, her program has one of the highest viewership figures on the Food Network.

The career of Ina Garten

The first years

Ina Garten was born in Brooklyn, New York and grew up in Stamford , Connecticut . She is the second child of surgeon Charles H. Rosenberg and his wife Florence. Both parents valued a good education and encouraged their daughter to spend time doing homework rather than acquiring housewife skills. Ina Garten met her future husband Jeffrey Garten when she was 15 when she was visiting her older brother at Dartmouth College . Upon completion of high school , she attended the Syracuse University to there first fashion design to study their major changed but then in economics . She gave up her studies when she married Jeffrey Garten at the age of 20.

Julia Child - the well-known American cook had a major influence on Ina Garten's cooking style

Ina Garten moved to Fort Bragg , North Carolina with her husband in 1968 . While her husband was doing his military service in the Vietnam War , she began to dig deeper into cooking. After completing their military service, the couple traveled through France for four months. Garten described this trip as the origin of her preference for French cuisine: The markets with their variety of fresh foods were impressive and new for her. After returning to the USA, she began to study Julia Child's cookbooks . The cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking , which is very popular in the USA, played a major role . She also started giving dinner parties weekly. She and her husband moved to Washington, DC in 1972.

Ina Garten worked for the White House in Washington and continued her studies at George Washington University . She later completed her studies with an MBA . Her husband was working for the State Department during this time . Originally employed as an assistant, Ina Garten was given the position of budget officer after a while. Her areas of responsibility included drawing up the US nuclear energy budget and drafting strategy papers on nuclear facilities under US President Gerald Ford and later Jimmy Carter . To compensate for the work she found stressful, she cooked and regularly held dinner parties at the weekends. At the same time, she worked in the real estate sector. In the Washington, DC area, she bought houses that she remodeled and resold. With the proceeds of this sideline, she acquired the Barefoot Contessa delicatessen store .

The Barefoot Contessa delicatessen store

In 1978 Ina Garten accidentally saw a newspaper ad listing a Westhampton Beach deli for sale. Very quickly after the tour, she decided to buy the business, quit her job with the US government and moved to New York to run the business from there. “ My work in Washington was intellectually exciting and demanding, but it just didn't suit me, ” she explained four years later in an interview for the New York Times .

The store was named Barefoot Contessa by its original owner in memory of Ava Gardner and her film, The Barefoot Countess . Ina Garten left the name unchanged because, from her point of view, this corresponded to her business idea of ​​an elegant but pragmatic lifestyle. After a month of working with the previous owner, she took sole control of the business. Her delicatessen shop, which among other things offered ready-made dishes, proved to be successful under her management. At that time, she was already marketing coffee specialties under her own brand name and setting up a delivery service for parties.

Garten initially cooked most of the dishes she provided herself, but increasingly employed other cooks and bakers as her sales increased. After just one year, she was looking for a larger store with more retail space. A few years later, this also turned out to be too small. In 1985 she moved her business to Long Island's exclusive suburb of East Hampton Village .

Scenes from the film What Your Heart Desires, with Jack Nicholson in the lead role, were shot in Ina Garten's delicatessen

It gradually expanded from a shop with an area of ​​37 square meters to 278 square meters. She specialized in delicacies such as Lobster Cobb Salad - a salad made with cold lobster -, caviar , imported cheeses and farm products grown in the region. Most of their customers were wealthy New Yorkers who had their summer residence in the area. Her shop became so well known that director Nancy Meyers decided to shoot some scenes of her Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton film What Your Heart Desires in Ina Garten's shop. The business has also been mentioned several times in the press by well-known personalities in the film business, including Steven Spielberg and Lauren Bacall .

In 1996, after running the business for almost two decades, Ina Garten sold it to two of her employees. However, she herself remained the owner of the building in which the shop was located. She took a six-month break to develop other business ideas, during which time she converted the space above the shop into offices. During this time she had success with her website Barefoot Contessa , through which she sold some of her products, such as her coffee brand, online.

The delicatessen shop Barefoot Contessa closed in 2004 after the lease had expired and negotiations between Ina Garten and the new operators of the shop about a rental extension failed. The failure of the lease negotiations has also been interpreted as an attempt by Ina Garten to regain control of the delicatessen store after the store had lost its share of sales to a competitor under the new operators. Ina Garten did not reopen the shop either, but rented the shop space to someone else.

The cookbooks

At the suggestion of her husband, Ina Garten concentrated on the publication of cookbooks from 1999 onwards. In 1999 her first cookbook, The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook , was published, which included many of the recipes that made her successful in her deli. The sales success exceeded both Ina Gartens and the expectations of the Clarkson Potter publishing house. The cookbook was published with a print run of 35,000, which is a typical print run for a cookbook by a non-established author in the USA. The first edition of the cookbook was out of print very soon and the cookbook was published a second and a third time in the year of publication. Ina Garten sold a total of over 100,000 books in the first year. She took advantage of her young fame as a cookbook author and published Barefoot Contessa Parties in 2001 ! which also proved very successful and received a number of good reviews. This was followed in 2002 by the cookbook Barefoot Contessa Family Style . Both Barefoot Contessa Cookbook and Parties! were nominated for the James Beard Awards in 2000 and 2002 . Her nominations were seen as surprising as she was seen as having little experience compared to other nominees such as French chef Jacques Pépin and international wine expert Brian St. Pierre .

Ina Gartens cookbooks correspond in their design to European cookbooks in the upper price segment. Your cookbooks are illustrated throughout with elaborate color photographs, each recipe being illustrated with a one-sided, large photo. This form of appearance, which is also referred to as the coffee table book in the publishing business , sets it apart from the mass of cookbooks published in the USA. Ina Garten has occasionally been criticized for the elaborate design, as her cookbooks offer relatively little space for recipes. In the US, where there is no fixed price control for books, her books go on to retail at a suggested retail price of $ 35. Overall, however, she has received positive reviews for her cookbooks. From the well-known in the US chef Giada de Laurentiis Ina Garten has even been referred to as one of their favorite authors. At the end of 2004, Ina Garten had sold a total of over 1 million books with her first three cookbooks. She has since published two more cookbooks. In 2004 Barefoot was published in Paris: Easy French Food You Can Make at Home (translated, for example, Barefoot in Paris: Simple French recipes for you at home ). This was followed in 2006 Barefoot Contessa at Home: Everyday Recipes You'll Make Over and Over Again (roughly translated: The Barefoot Contessa at Home: Recipes You are to cook again and again ).

The TV show

Ina Garten has occasionally been criticized for her profuse use of expensive ingredients such as saffron

Shortly after the first success with the two cookbooks The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook and Barefoot Contessa Parties! Ina Garten received an offer from Food Network for her own cooking show. She declined the offer several times until a Food Network in London -based production company responsible for producing the show, which already includes the cooking show Nigella Bites by Nigella Lawson produced successful. This cooking show also appeared under the already established name Barefoot Contessa , was on the air for the first time in 2002 and had high audience numbers from the start. Ina Garten's show focused on down-to-earth recipes designed for entertaining guests. With Ina Garden, Food Network found a personality who met with a positive response from the audience with her calm manner. The press began comparing her television presence to that of American chef and household icon Martha Stewart , but advocated a more cordial manner. The show is occasionally criticized for Ina Garten's use of expensive cooking ingredients and her constant emphasis that only the best ingredients should be used: Ina Garten prepares boeuf bourguignon , a stew from bourgeois French cuisine, for example with beef fillet instead of the much cheaper and traditionally used meat from the club to. For example, she sometimes needs meat worth 100 USD (depending on the exchange rate between 80 and 100 EUR) for her recipes or consumes large quantities of expensive spices such as saffron and vanilla . Other points of criticism that are occasionally raised relate to the high content of food energy and fat in their dishes and to the size of the individual portions. It is also criticized that her various BMWs , her silverware, her porcelain collection and other luxury goods are regularly shown in her cooking programs .

Barefoot Contessa has around one million viewers, making it one of the most watched programs on the Food Network. In 2005 the cooking show was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award .

Barefoot Contessa - The food brand

In 2006 Ina Garten started her own food brand under the name Barefoot Contessa Pantry together with the food company Stonewall Kitchen . The product range includes finished products such as batter mixes, marinades, sauces and canned fruits. They are all based on their popular recipes for dishes like coconut cupcakes , maple oatmeal scones , mango chutney, and lemon curd . Similar to the cookbooks or the products that she sold through her delicatessen store and later on her website, these products are also in the upper price segment. For example, the recommended retail price for a brownie batter mix is USD 10. These products are only sold through delicatessen stores and shops specializing in upscale kitchen equipment. Ina Garten plans to expand her food brand if the first line of products proves successful.

Her popularity with her fans was also demonstrated by the huge crowd when she first presented her grocery brand to the public at the beginning of 2006. More than 2,000 visitors came to try the new product line and to briefly meet Ina Garten.

Success factors

Martha Stewart was a major influence on Ina Garten's career

Martha Stewart and Eli Zabar - The mentors

Martha Stewart, the editor of the lifestyle magazine Martha Steward Living , which is very popular in the USA , played a major role at the beginning of Ina Garten's career. Since she took a liking to Ina Garten delicatessen shop as well as her recipes and her style of decoration, Ina Garten was shown on the front of this popular magazine with her house and later with one of her pastry creations in 1998 and 2001. Martha Stewart and Ina Garten worked together for several years and were considered friends. A brief falling out occurred between the two of them when Martha Stewart saw herself as the author of a recipe that Ina Garten considered her creation. A little later, however, Martha Stewart wrote the foreword for Ina Garten's first cookbook. Ina Garten, on the other hand, wrote several columns for Martha Stewart Magazine. Laura Plimpton, Martha Stewart's sister, was also a guest on Ina Garten's cooking show Barefoot Contessa several times .

Eli Zabar, who owns a chain of bakeries and delicacies and is known for his designs for roof gardens, also had a great influence on Ina Garten's cooking style. He encouraged her to develop a style of cooking in which she simplified classic dishes, especially French cuisine, and placed greater emphasis on the natural taste of the ingredients. Today Ina Garten contributes to Eli Zabar's level of awareness, as she occasionally points out his baked goods and products to her viewers. Individual scenes of her cooking show were filmed in Eli Zabar's main store, Eli's Vinegar Factory . She also recommends his retail products in her cookbooks and has even included some of Zabar's best-known recipes.

Cooking shows - a fashion trend from which Ina Garten benefited

Since the second half of the 1990s, the popularity of cooking shows has steadily increased in the USA. Emeril Lagasse pioneered this fashion trend with his show Emeril Live . The television group Food Network took advantage of this increased audience interest and put a number of new shows on the air. Martha Stewart also responded to this with new series and the publication of magazines, cookbooks and branded articles. Longstanding magazines such as Gourmet and Bon Appétit recorded a significant increase in their circulation during this time.

Ina Garten writes columns for a magazine published by Oprah Winfrey

Ina Gartens achievement consists mainly in establishing herself as a cooking expert with her cookbooks and her appearances in the shows of Martha Stewart and to continue this success in 2002 with a cooking show that corresponds to her personal style. Her fame as a television star also increased her presence in the print media. She wrote several columns for O, the Oprah Magazine , a magazine published by the US television giant Oprah Winfrey . In this magazine, she also provides advice on planning for parties and catering for guests. In the magazine House Beautiful - a women's magazine that has its focus on equipment and cooking - she has a monthly column titled Ask the Barefoot Contessa ( Ask the Barefoot Contessa ). In this column, she answers readers' questions about cooking and lifestyle. Ina Garten also launched a small series of notebooks and recipe cards to complement her cookbooks. She wrote the forewords for the cookbooks of two other great American chefs, Kathleen King and Rori Trovato. One of her most famous recipes, "Lemon Roast Chicken with Croutons" appeared in The Best American Recipes 2005-2006 collection . Another of their dishes was added to the collection of Today's Kitchen Cookbook , a recipe collection that brought together the most popular dishes on the news show The Today Show .

When Martha Stewart was arrested in 2004 for insider trading , the American press saw Ina Garten as the one who could follow in the footsteps of this television icon. Unlike Martha Stewart, Ina Garten has repeatedly rejected proposals to market a magazine, cookware, furnishings or to open a chain of shops under the associated term The Barefoot Contessa . The reason she has given so far is that she has no interest in complicating her life. Her cookbook Barefoot in Paris , published in 2004 , of which she sold more than 400,000 copies in 2004 and 2005, was on the New York Times bestseller list . In 2005 she signed a contract with Food Network to continue her cooking show for another three years. Her next cookbook, Barefoot Contessa at Home , was published in autumn 2006 . The contract with her publisher provides for further cookbooks and is considered one of the highest endowed for a cookbook author.

Ina Garten rarely appears in public outside of her cooking shows, although her book signing sessions often attract more than 500 visitors.

The person Ina Garten

Ina Garten signs her book

Like her husband, Ina Garten comes from a Jewish-American family. While she rarely expresses herself about her religion, dishes from the Jewish cuisine are among those that she occasionally demonstrates in her cooking program or describes in her cookbooks. She doesn't cook kosher cuisine , however . She is still married to Jeffrey Garten, who has worked as a professor of economics after a political career. Unlike the rest of the family, he is occasionally present in her cooking programs, supports her in the preparation of dishes or tries them. Ina Garten has owned a house in the 7th arrondissement in Paris since 2003 , which has also been the backdrop for one of her programs. The couple has a total of three residences and lives alternately in Southport, Connecticut , East Hampton in the state of New York and in Paris. The couple have no children.

The political attitudes of television celebrities are observed and classified with far more interest than is usual in Europe. Their opinion on both the right to abortion and attitudes towards homosexuals is of particular interest . Both topics are particularly controversial within US society. Ina Garten did not comment publicly on either topic. However, she is generally ascribed a liberal attitude, as she hosted a benefit dinner for an organization that campaigns for the right to abortion and her cooking show often invited guests who openly profess their homosexuality.

For the election campaign on the occasion of the election of the US president has considerable sums for both George HW Bush also called for Bill Clinton and John Kerry donated. She is registered as a member of the Democratic Party in the US state of New York. She herself is a member of the "Design Review Board" in East Hampton, a committee that is responsible for the issuing of building permits and for the urban development of this place.

She is considered one of the most influential people in the world , according to Time magazine .

Publications and television broadcasts

Cookbooks

  • 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 Makes Everyone Feel Like Family (2002)
  • Barefoot in Paris: Easy French Food You Can Make at Home (2004)
  • Barefoot Contessa at Home: Everyday Recipes You'll Make Over and Over Again (2006)

Columns in magazines

  • Entertaining is fun! in Martha Stewart Living magazine , 1999 to date
  • Entertaining in O magazine , The Oprah Magazine , 2003 to date
  • Ask the Barefoot Contessa in House Beautiful magazine , 2006 to date

Television appearances

  • From Martha's Kitchen: Ina Garten's Kitchen Clambake (2000)
  • Barefoot Contessa (2002 to date)
  • Chefography (2006)

swell

The version of May 5, 2006 of the article is a slightly edited translation of the English-language Wikipedia article in its version of April 28, 2006.

  1. a b Verena Dobnik, The Barefoot Contessa Lives Her Dream Life , The Sreveport Times , 2005
  2. ^ Network, Food (2006). "Ina." Chefography. The EW Scripps Company.
  3. ^ Susan Houston, How Ina Garden Grows , Raleigh News & Observer , Nov. 22, 2006, page E-1
  4. ^ A b Ina Garten, Barefoot in Paris , Clarkson Potter, ISBN 1-4000-4935-0
  5. Enid Nemy "Exchanging Standard Careers for Dreams", The New York Times , August 7 1981
  6. a b Liz Seymour, Entertaining Ina Garten , Washington Post , 2004
  7. Christopher Monte Smith: "Very Interesting People: Ina Garden." . In: BookSense.com . Book Sense, Inc. 2001. Archived from the original on March 25, 2006. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved March 28, 2006. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.booksense.com
  8. Enid Nemy, "Exchanging Standard Careers for Dreams", The New York Times , August 7 1981, page 2: 4. The original quote is "My job in Washington was intellectually exciting and stimulating but it wasn't me at all"
  9. ^ Ina Garten, Q&A , on her website Barefoot Contessa Online , accessed April 6, 2006
  10. Carissa Katz, Something Was Filmed In The Hamptons , East Hampton Star , 2003
  11. Susan Rosenbaum, Barefoot Contessa Store Is No More , East Hampton Star , 2003
  12. Deborah Schoenemann, Muffin Meltdown! Contessa Closes , New York Magazine , 2003
  13. ^ Trends, Publishing (2000). "Chefs Shake Up Cookbook Market." Publishing trends.
  14. Sagon, Candy (2005). "The Food Network's Latest It Girl." The Washington Post.
  15. Weinraub, Judith (2004). "Bistro Cooking, by Degrees." The Washington Post.
  16. Doni Greenberg: "Dishing It Out." . In: Redding.com . 2006. Archived from the original on June 7, 2007. Retrieved April 6, 2006.
  17. ^ Ina Garten: "The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook", p. 123
  18. ^ Food Network: "Barefoot Contessa." . In: Food Network Ad Sales Programming . Scripps Network, Inc. 2006. Archived from the original on May 13, 2006. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved March 30, 2006. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / foodnetworkadsales.com
  19. Sarah Hall, "Martha's Jailtime Emmy Noms." . In: E! Online news . E! Entertainment Television, Inc. 2005. Retrieved March 28, 2006.
  20. Maynard, Micheline (2007). "Barefoot Entrepreneur." The Providence Journal.
  21. Witchel, Alex (2001). "How Difficult Is Simple?" The New York Times.
  22. ^ Ina Garten: "Ask the Barefoot Contessa." . In: House Beautiful . Hearst Communications, Inc. 2006. Archived from the original on April 16, 2007. Retrieved on March 28, 2006.
  23. ^ Sara Dickerman: "Move Over, Martha." . In: Slate . Newsweek Interactive Co. 2003. Retrieved March 28, 2006.
  24. Maryles, Daisy (2005). "No Room at the Top." In: Publishers Weekly
  25. ^ Danford, Natalie (2005). "Video Made the Cookbook Star." Publishers Weekly.
  26. ^ Federal Election Commission: "Celebrity Federal Campaign Contributions: Ina Garden." . In: Newsmeat . Polity Media, Inc. 2006. Archived from the original on April 28, 2006. Information: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved March 28, 2006. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.newsmeat.com
  27. Ina Garden Time 100

Web links

This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on June 16, 2007 .