Ina Garten says she originally doubted anyone would be interested in her life story, which is wild to me. Today we know her as the Barefoot Contessa, from both her successful East Hampton specialty food store and her popular Food Network cooking show. But did you know that before those careers took off, she earned a pilot’s certificate in North Carolina, flipped houses in the DC area, and wrote the nuclear energy budget and policy papers for the Office of Management and Budget under Presidents Ford and Carter?? I didn’t!! The Contessa is a Renaissance woman! Thank goodness a friend convinced Ina that her story needed to be told — and by her. Be Ready When the Luck Happens comes out October 1, and this week Ina stopped by the Today Show to talk about the experience of writing a memoir, and the meaning behind the title:
“Well for a long time, I thought, ‘Who would be interested in my story?’ And a friend said to me, she said, ‘Somebody’s going to write your story and it should be you.’ And I thought ‘Oh, that’s a good point.’ And we started on it and she helped kind of bring me to places I had forgotten. It turned out to be a really interesting experience,” Garten shared in an exclusive interview on TODAY April 11.
One of those places was Washington, D.C., where Garten worked as a budget analyst for presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter.
“She would take me to like the place in Washington, where I decided to leave Washington and said, ‘Put yourself on the steps with Jeffrey having the conversation about leaving him and leaving Washington and you moving on.’”
Revisiting those life-changing moments was emotional for Garten, but she also says that they illustrate how she got to where she is.
“Be Ready When the Luck Happens” is yet another example of Garten’s pioneering spirit and courageous career.
“I think shifting gears was scary. I jumped off a few cliffs, thinking, ‘How is this going to work out?’ It would have never happened if I hadn’t. Having the courage to do scary things is really what propelled my story,” she said.
As Garten wrote the first draft to her memoir, she turned to love letters her husband Jeffrey wrote to her when they first started dating.
“I had those as a record. It was really quite extraordinary,” Garten said. The letters ended up being a reminder of things the two of them had experienced earlier in life.
“There were things that I thought never happened but they were in the letters and it made us realize that, ‘Oh yeah, that’s right, that did happen.’”
With her stunning East Hampton home and numerous accolades including a James Beard Award, it would be easy to say that Garten is one of the lucky ones. She says that’s not exactly the case.
“I always thought that I was really lucky, but as I look back, I started to realize that I’d actually done a lot of the work. I taught myself how to cook, I built houses, I build things and that I did it because I loved doing it. I realized when it came to be that I was lucky that I saw a business for sale and that I was ready. It wasn’t just that I was lucky — I was ready when it happened.”
First of all, YES to being the one to tell your own story. Especially when you’ve saved the love letters your husband of over 50 years has written you! As for Ina’s take on luck, I couldn’t agree more. And I thought we’d never see eye to eye again after #Bagelgate. Nothing can replace or shortcut the value of the work you put in. (Well, nothing except for Nepo.) But I also appreciate Ina’s vantage in looking back and seeing how things developed. While you’re living your life, it’s hard to see how what you’re doing in any given moment may be helping towards where you’d like to be. Ina’s realization that yes she was lucky, but more importantly, she had laid a foundation from which she could jump, is a reminder to give ourselves some grace. What we’re doing now can count for something bigger down the line.
When I moved to New York for college REDACTED years ago, my mother gifted me with a hardcover copy of E.B. White’s Here Is New York. One of the best lines in it is, “No one should come to New York to live unless he is willing to be lucky.” With Ina’s help then, let’s add that if you’re willing to be lucky, you better be ready.
Photos via Instagram and credit Getty. Photo on the frontpage is a screenshot from this video
I love Ina as much as the next person – who wouldn’t, she’s awesome – but let’s be real: Her husband is a hedge funder. Full stop. If you had a rich husband funding all of your various endeavors including a 20 year stint as a shopkeeper you might be a Barefoot Contessa, too. Not to mention the networking and access to powerful people he provided over the years…
This isn’t to take anything away from her success, but just to point out that success is much more likely when you have millions backing you up. It’s not like she bootstrapped herself by herself with no assets whatsoever into a multimedia publishing empire.
OT I find her writing a bit flowery so not sure whether or not I’ll read the memoir…
From what I see in this excerpt, that seems to be her point. She thought she was just lucky (like having a wealthy husband, networking, etc.), but she also put in the work. No amount of wealth can make people buy and love a crappy brand.
@Eurydice – I think two things can be true i.e. (1) she is lucky (2) she put in enough work. Without those contacts and access to her clientele the brand might not have been so successful so whilst she leveraged her network, she was lucky to have that network in the first place.
Having the network is not a bad thing and I’m happy for her. Smart people always make the most of the networks at their disposal.
@Eurydice – While I think it’s true that what you described was probably her point I think that @Lady Esther’s point remains true.
Wealth can make sure that your business ideas succeed by being able to afford business advisers, designers, manufactures, business contacts, etc… so, yes, wealth can make anyone with an idea at least moderately successful if they have access to and pay the right people.
Wealth, luck, and nepotism – these are the reasons many people succeed at their projects. Why not admit it plainly?
@strah – my point is that Ina is admitting her “luck” plainly. She says that it wasn’t until she looked back on her life that she realized she had also done a lot of work.
As for the advantages of wealth – wealth alone can’t build a successful brand like Ina’s. That takes personal vision, creativity, determination and organization.
The example I’ll offer is Prince William – all the wealth in the world, all the advantages, the ultimate nepobaby, able to hire as many experts as he wants, and he can’t seem to walk and chew gum at the same time. His plans will never be successful unless he actually works at them.
Yes, having a rich husband definitely helps but how many women in a similar position do nothing except workout, play with their faces and social climb?
It takes guts to take on a business like she did as well as consistency and creativity to make it successful.
I’m not sure I’d call Jeffrey Garten a “hedge funder” – he was an academic and govt economist for a lot of his career.
I like what Ina is saying here (and it’s clearly a Rorschach test for some in this comment thread) – even if you went to college and had a career that doesn’t undermine the work she’s put in. She had a work ethic at Syracuse and GWU Business School and that’s a natural drive which led her to several other things.
I know someone who worked for Ina back in the day (I can’t say what capacity) when I lived in Southampton. Ina did quite well with her store and did not need her husband’s money to fund the business. She and other tenants left the building when the landlord raised the rent to an astronomical number. I could swear I read an article from many years ago where when said she started The Barefoot Contessa store by liquidating her retirement account or something like that.
@Lady Esther. I understand both are self made and met in college. If Jeffrey became a millionaire first I am sure it had a lot to do with her support. It’s not like she was full time housewife or worked on minimum wage jobs either. Seems like before becoming the Barefoot Contessa she had have her share of well paid white collar jobs.
I had no idea that Ina Garten had done all those interesting things and jobs years ago. She gives the impression that she is just an upper middle class lady who likes to cook for fun. But I guess I was wrong. I love her. It is so unfair that some people are born with so many talents and the rest of us are not LOL. Oh well.
I. Just.love.Ina. Great person; excellent recipes. Well done.
I am so looking forward to listening to her read her book!
It’s like the Barbies say when they win awards: I worked really hard, and I deserve this.
We need to think like this more.
And wow! What a life !!!
I have consciously tried to stop referring to myself as lucky in recent years. I’m 45, have a great career (which allows me to live comfortably) and my boyfriend (of nearly 14 years) and I live in a house that we have renovated over the last 9 years. I have a lot of things to be happy about in my life.
I worked hard to get here. Single parent family (with time living on benefits), first to go to university on either side of the family, and I’ve always been aware that I have no fallback/plan B. I have to make it work. Now, that said of course there have been aspects of privilege and being in the right place at the right time – luck – and then it’s down to you to make something of that.
My mother was/is a feminist and made it clear that it was up to me what I made of my life but I didn’t realise at the time what being a teenager in the 90’s and 20-something in the 00’s in the UK did to me with just how mysoginistic society and the media were and what was normalised. Hence, in the last ten or so years I’ve been working on taking more ownership of my success and giving myself credit for the life I have now.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk!
I don’t know…
I’ve not been lucky, I’ve put down a lot of work since I was 14 and I’ve gone nowhere anyway, and I’m in my mid 50ies. No chance to see any retirement option until my 70ies (I live in the UK too).
There are days I really think it would be better not to be here anymore and all this ‘work’ I’ve put in is quite useless. I’m going nowhere and achieved nothing.
It’s great you acknowledged you have worked hard but yes, do acknowledge you’ve been lucky too, because not everyone who works hard get somewhere, actually quite the opposite, I’m afraid x
I am truly sorry to read your post. I don’t know you but I do know you are not alone. And, you are right about the uneveness of good fortune in this life. I hope you can find real support from counseling or your faith or persons in your life you can trust. I hope today brings you something, a thought, a song, a bird -whatever, that lifts your spirits.
I’ve been both lucky (white, two college educated parents with white collar careers, a paid college education, and a friend introduced me to someone who hired me for the job that become my career, and a husband in finance who is a genius with money) and I’ve also worked my booty OFF, late nights, early mornings, weekends, push, drive, climb, demand to get where I am as the primary (not sole) income earner, with a life of ease and privilege to the point where my biggest problems are ensuring my kid is emotionally healthy and not raised as a spoiled white man.
BUT
If you’re lucky, and you succeed, I firmly believe you have a responsibility to widen the path behind you. Bring up women, promote and invest in people of color, understand that accents and clothes and education aren’t the only, or even most likely, markers of someone’s ability to succeed. Be an advocate for anyone who hasn’t had your privilege or your opportunities and GIVE them those opportunities. Make a longer table, not a taller tower. Not only because it’s right and moral, but also it creates a stronger organization for you, and then you get to watch “generations” of your talent grow. This is where I think people get lost-they get theirs and forget to help those who didn’t.
Alpine-
I hate it that you’ve had that experience-work without reward will grind you down. Sending hugs from across the pond.
I don’t know much about Ina. But I will always appreciate her viral video during the pandemic to make a giant Cosmo. It was brilliantly funny.
I swear I already read a biography about her? I knew this stuff – plus she had a rough relationship with her mother. Maybe it was a biographical bit in one of her cookbooks.
I really do not understand why people who get lucky have to prove to themselves and others that there was no luck involved. There’s always luck involved. There are thousands, millions of other people out there doing the work in various fields; not everyone gets to rise to the top. Luck *is* involved. It’s like nepo babies. Just own it; it doesn’t mean you aren’t talented or haven’t put in the work.
Denial of reality makes me gnash my teeth.
“Not everyone gets to the top”, exactly… majority stays down.
My favorite part of that show How I Built This on NPR is when the host asks the business owner at the end if they feel that luck or hard work played more of a role in their success. It really reveals who is a thoughtful person and who is an entitled rich jerk.
The truth is, as Betsy said, luck plays a role in every success. I have a successful freelance writing business that supports my family of 5. Many, many people work harder than me to become successful freelance writers — hustling more, attending more classes and networking opportunities, honing their craft. I have at least three acquaintances with stellar resumes who have come to me asking how I did it, and I have to tell them it was luck. Yes, I worked hard and scrambled to sustain my luck and make the most of it when it happened. And that hard work led to more opportunities. But the foundation of my success is luck. Thankfully, I was able to capitalize on it. I think that’s what Ina is saying.
Also, my daughter requests Ina’s mocha icebox cake for her birthday every year, and it is divine!
I love her. I have every cookbook proudly displayed on the book shelf in my living room.
Eh. I’ve been lukewarm to her ever since she rejected a Make-a-Wish request from a six-year-old fan due to “scheduling conflicts”. Pull the other leg, Ina – you suddenly had space for him after the blowback and invited him to the Food Network studios….
Personally, I don’t think anyone should be shamed and voluntold into Make-A-Wish requests. Of course, the stories are tragic – children getting cancer and other awful diagnoses is one of the most unfair things in life. But who’s to say that Ina has to jump just because Make-A-Wish asks? Ina’s alluded to having mourned the family she could never have (not sure if it was a fertility thing or because of a tough childhood/bad relationship with parents that she chose to break the cycle), so maybe she’s not comfortable around kids? Not everyone is, and that’s ok too.
zomg this. I was way too old to have kids before I was comfortable with them.
I think it also depends on how you define success. There are some peole who openly discuss their success and others keep to themselves. But for some reason we seem to define success as belonging to someone like Gwyneth Paltrow who excels at self-promotion and parroting her self-confidence. Not everyone is into that sort of thing (ie self -marketing?). But the work ethic is likely the same among everyone – some hard workers prefer to not be seen and just work quietly.
Two things can be true at once. Lots of folks work super hard or harder and get nothing. Luck and wealth definitely help, but it doesn’t have to be the stand in for talent.