Be Ready When the Luck Happens: A Memoir

“Bessie and Morris had enough money to take a trip to Europe and came back with my favorite present: my Paris dress. […] I didn’t know where Paris was, but I was sure it was a special place and I wanted to go there someday.”

The city of Paris acts as an important symbol of Garten’s goals for her life throughout the memoir. This passage suggests that her relationship with the city began at an early age, when her paternal grandparents brought her a special dress from their trip to Paris. The gift established Paris in her imagination as a city where she could be the best, most special version of herself.

“I loved taking care of Jeffrey and making him happy […] Now baking something delicious was a way to express my feelings and to connect with Jeffrey—I’d think of him while I cooked, and when he reached for one of my cookies or brownies, I knew he’d think of me.”

The Emotional Importance of Food emerges as an important theme in the early chapters of the memoir. This passage suggests that the development of Garten’s love of food was closely tied to her relationship with Jeffrey. As she fell in love with Jeffrey, she also fell in love with the act of cooking.

“He had enormous respect for Jeffrey, the dream son-in-law, and Jeffrey had chosen me, so he was forced to start seeing me the way Jeffrey saw me. That moment was the beginning of a change in my relationship with my father, because for once, I exceeded his expectations.”

This passage demonstrates the patriarchal society in which Ina Garten was raised in Stamford, Connecticut in the 1950s and 1960s. Garten’s father was emotionally and physically abusive throughout her childhood; this passage suggests that he only grew to respect her after realizing that Jeffrey, whom he respected, saw value in her. The fact that Garten’s father only saw her worth through her husband’s eyes reflects his patriarchal patterns of thinking.

“Instead, Jeffrey was inviting me to think about the future because he knew that at some point, I would want more for myself. I often think that Jeffrey was the first feminist I knew; he believed women had as much potential as men and I had a responsibility to fulfill mine.”

Although she is famous for her mastery of traditionally feminine pursuits like cooking and hosting, Garten rebelled against traditional expectations for women throughout her life. In this passage, she suggests that Jeffrey supported her efforts to be more than just a housewife, encouraging her to want more even when she was content. This dynamic changed throughout their relationship.

“I wasn’t nervous or worried, just blindly confident that I would get off in the right place and find Jeffrey. What was I thinking? I had no way to understand what anyone was saying, no cell phone (because they hadn’t been invented yet), and no fear of ending up stranded in the wrong village and never being seen again.”

The concept of luck emerges as a motif in the early chapters of the memoir. Garten’s inexperience often puts her in dangerous positions: in this case, she travels into the Thai countryside during the Vietnam war to visit Jeffrey without knowing where she is going. However, good luck enables her to find people willing to help her. Later, she acknowledges that her luck is often due to her open personality and adventurous spirit.

“The ‘plan’ was not to have a plan—to travel like real Europeans, moving from country to country, campsite to campsite, whenever we pleased. Military life, with its regimens and tours of duty, was in the rearview mirror. Ahead, open roads and endless possibilities.”

The four months Jeffrey and Garten spend in Europe prove invaluable to her understanding of cooking and quality ingredients. In this passage, she suggests that they were initially drawn to the trip because it offered freedom they had not experienced at home or during Jeffrey’s time in the military. The small Renault car they drove that summer acts as a symbol of freedom and discovery.

“Moving through the market, we saw fresh fish, heads and all, on beds of ice, sitting next to piles of oysters, mussels, tiny clams, shrimp, and snails in their shells. There were local olive oils presented like fine wines, honey from nearby hives, and spices from distant lands.”

In the late 60s and early 70s, American food culture revolved around convenience, and most foods available at average stores were ultra-processed, with a limited selection of fresh fruits and vegetables. This passage demonstrates the revelation that French markets offered to Garten on her trip. The reverence for food in this passage reflects Garten’s early inexperience with the types of ingredients and the set of values that would make her famous.

“I wanted to cook like that, and I made up my mind that I would teach myself how to do it as soon as I got home. Years later, I discovered that Julia Child had a similar moment earing sole meunière—sole in butter sauce—also in Normandy, and that’s when she decided to learn all about French cooking.”

Throughout the memoir, Garten acknowledges the debts she owes to chefs and business owners who inspired her career. In particular, American chef and television personality Julia Child acts as a powerful symbol of the types of changes Garten hopes to make in the food industry. In this passage, Garten compares her early experiences with food to Child’s, establishing an early connection between the two women.

“Why was I cooking elaborate meals that made me feel like I was training for the Olympics, when simple food, perfectly prepared and beautifully served, delighted the guests and didn’t make the host feel like killing themselves afterward?”

As a chef and television personality, Garten is known for her simple, comforting dishes and easy-to-prepare dinner party recipes. In this passage, she suggests that she learned the importance of easy but impressive dinners from her friend Dick Erb, who taught her how to throw dinner parties without spending the evening in the kitchen. The references to the Olympics and self-harm demonstrate how seriously Garten takes food and hosting even before her career begins.

“I suspected that he saw Barefoot Contessa as my summer job and thought that when the store closed in September, we’d go back to our old life in Washington…and the old roles that went with it. I’d be the wife, responsible for everything domestic, and Jeffrey would be the ‘man’ who helped occasionally.”

Ten years in, cracks start to emerge in Garten’s marriage to Jeffrey. This passage suggests that the problem lies in Jeffrey’s expectations of the type of wife Garten would be. While he expected her to fulfil a domestic role and support his career, she wanted to pursue her own independent career.

“I wasn’t the only one who thought it would be liberating to throw out the old gender roles and start again. Jeffrey admitted that he wanted a job where he traveled for work but always felt that he should stay home because he was the husband and had to be responsible for me.”

This passage suggests that traditional expectations for gender roles in marriage are harmful to both men and women. Having an independent career allows Garten to find fulfillment outside of the home, and acknowledging her independence allows Jeffrey to pursue his own career in the way he wants to. Releasing the expectations of traditional gender roles allows Garten and Jeffrey to flourish individually and as a couple.

“The golden age of prepared foods started in the 1970s, parallel to the women’s movement. Women were going to work, but at the end of the day, they still had to put dinner on the table. The solution was really good takeout. At a specialty food store, it was possible to pick up a delicious meal, made from fresh ingredients, on the way home from the office.”

This passage reflects the close relationship between popular culture and food culture. When women began to enter the workforce in the 1970s, the feminist revolution was still in its infancy, and many women with professional careers were nonetheless expected to provide food for their families after work. Garten suggests that food culture adapted by emphasizing fresh, prepared foods. Ironically, Garten’s participation in the food industry complicated the dynamics of her own marriage.

“He was a Wall Street trader type of guy; he didn’t understand how she could have paid fifteen dollars for a roast duck and five minutes later would turn down a hundred—think of the return on her investment!”

The fact that Garten’s stores open in the Hamptons—a popular seaside resort frequented by wealthy New Yorkers—is essential to her success, as her customers are willing to spend money for the best food. This passage, however, suggests that she holds a certain degree of contempt for some of her clients, despite their money. In this instance, a Wall Street trader doesn’t understand the emotional value of food and is willing to harass a stranger in order to obtain what he sees as a status symbol meal.

“I was totally game to try, and the best part was that he wasn’t prioritizing his big-deal investment banking job over my small retail food store job.”

As Garten’s career progresses, so does Jeffrey’s, and his work takes him across the world to Tokyo. Jeffrey’s belief in the importance of Garten’s career is essential to her professional development. Although others might think his career at Lehman Brothers is more important than her store, he values her career because he values her.

“I was a little nervous about being accepted by the East Hamptonites, who viewed Dean & DeLuca as a very chic, high-end store, a place New York magazine described as ‘swellegant-elegant,’ like Soho at the beach.”

Garten’s first two stores are located in Westhampton and East Hampton, resort towns 32 miles apart on the south fork of Long Island. Although many non-New Yorkers consider “the Hamptons” to be a single, homogenous place, this passage highlights Garten’s awareness of the difference between the casual, beachy Westhampton and the more luxurious East Hampton. Garten would ultimately be responsible for spreading a more relaxed East Hampton aesthetic across the United States.

“Because I had such a horrible childhood with my parents, with emotional and sometimes physical abuse, I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to re-create that family. I didn’t.”

This passage suggests that the emotional and physical abuse Garten suffered as a child had long-lasting effects on her life. When considering her reasons for not having children, Garten lists repeating her parents’ mistakes as a key concern. The fact that her brother feels the same way underscores the lasting emotional impact of the abuse they faced.

“He immediately saw its potential: a collection of uncomplicated but showstopping recipes that looked pretty easy to make plus gorgeous party platters built around prepared foods that required no cooking at all.”

This passage serves as a useful encapsulation of Garten’s philosophy as a chef and food personality. Garten considers her food to be impressive but simple to replicate, and she aims to echo the sense of discovery she loved in Paris and in the Barefoot Contessa store. She contrasts this philosophy with those of more formal chefs like Julia Child and Martha Stewart.

“‘No, that’s the way Martha does it! You already have Martha. You want me to do it the way I do it, which is simpler and more casual.’ I have no idea how I knew that or how I had the temerity to tell the director, but I knew anything else would feel wrong.”

Throughout the memoir, Garten compares herself to two of the most influential women in American food: Julia Child and Martha Stewart. In this passage, she explicitly rejects the model of perfection presented by Stewart in favor of a more casual, comforting feel. This passage also reflects the memoir’s interest in the importance of believing in yourself.

“I would invite people who were genuinely a part of my life—Jeffrey and our friends. No endorsements, no product placements: just me cooking delicious dinners and sharing them with the people who meant something to me in the places I loved.”

The importance of authenticity and believing in yourself is an important theme in the memoir. This passage suggests that the production of her television show was guided by a desire to reflect her real life, featuring her real friends and family rather than celebrities. Although this changed as she grew more popular, her real depiction of her real relationships—especially with Jeffrey—are at the heart of the show’s success.

“Almost every recipe, whether savory or sweet, needs an edge. Savory things tend to need something acidic, and sweet things tend to need something bitter to give them more depth of flavor.”

This is one of the few pieces of cooking advice contained within the memoir beyond the included recipes. Garten later makes a similar argument about her relationship with Jeffrey, suggesting that his thoughtfulness balances out her rash nature, while her sense of joy and play lightens up his serious mood. Garten suggests that this balance is essential to both cooking and relationships.

“That’s what I loved when we went to Paris during our camping trip in 1972, and that’s exactly what I love about it today. As Jeffrey said in his letter to me so long ago, We’ll go back to Paris when we can afford an apartment and we’ll do exactly the same things we loved when we only had five dollars a day.”

Throughout the memoir, the city of Paris appears as a recurring motif related to Garten’s personal development. As this passage notes, her relationship to the city changes as she ages and becomes more wealthy. However, despite these changes, the root of what she loves about Paris—her intimate connection to French food—remains the same. The passage also demonstrates the centrality of Jeffrey to her sense of self.

“People thought it was serendipitous that I came out with a cookbook about comfort food when people needed it most, but I had given a lot of thought to the topic. When I was planning the book in 2018, I looked around and saw a world that was deeply divided […] and I thought, Whatever side you’re on in 2020, you’ll want food that can make you feel better.”

This passage offers a clear example of Garten’s suggestion that readers be prepared for opportunities, or “be ready when the luck happens.” In this instance, Garten knew in 2018 that readers of a cookbook being published in 2020 might be craving comfort food, given the contentious election. The fact that a global pandemic created a number of anxious home chefs was a coincidence that helped to boost sales. Garten argues she was not lucky, but merely prepared.

“Everything changed when I met Jeffrey. This is when my life began. We all need only one person to believe in us, and for me, that person is Jeffrey. With his love and support, I learned to believe in myself and found happiness and peace.”

The value of unconditional love and support is an important theme in the memoir. This passage suggests that the emotional support and unconditional love Garten received from Jeffrey was essential to her success. Jeffrey’s love and support offers a stark contrast from the emotional and physical abuse she received as a child.