Ina Garten - Barefoot Contessa at Home

The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook

Barefoot Contessa Parties!

Barefoot Contessa Family Style

Barefoot in Paris

Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics

Barefoot Contessa How Easy is That?

Barefoot Contessa Foolproof

Copyright 2006 by Ina Garten
Photographs 2006 by Quentin Bacon

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Clarkson Potter/Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
www.clarksonpotter.com

Clarkson N. Potter is a trademark and Potter and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Garten, Ina.
Barefoot Contessa at home: everyday recipes youll make over and over again / by Ina Garten; photographs by Quentin Bacon. 1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes index.
1. Cookery. 2. Menus. I. Title.
TX714.G363 2006
641.5dc22 2006014257

eISBN: 978-0-307-88550-0

v3.1

Recently, my assistant, Barbara Libath, said that she wanted to take some recipes home to retest over the weekend. I said to her, Are you sure you want to work over the weekend? And she replied, Oh, is that what were doingworking? First and foremost, I want to thank Barbara not just for being so extraordinary but also for making every day together feel as though were just playing.

So many people helped make these books reality. My wonderful editor, Pam Krauss at Clarkson Potter/Publishers, is there for me through the highs and lows of writing cookbooks. Whenever Im stuck, she knows exactly the right word to say to get me going again. Marysarah Quinn, who designs my books, always knows exactly the tone Im looking for. And Esther Newberg, my amazing agent at ICM, always takes care of business so I can keep writing books. Thank you.

Thank you, too, for the fun and creative team of people that show up at my house in East Hampton to photograph my books. Rori Trovato and Megan Schlow make such beautiful food and Miguel Flores-Vianna arranges the perfect setting for it. And then Quentin Bacon takes beautiful photographs.

And finally, thank you to all my friends who inspire my cooking: Eli Zabar of E.A.T, Elis Bread, Taste, and Elis Manhattan; Anna Pump at Loaves & Fishes; George Germon and Johanne Killeen, chef-owners of Al Forno Restaurant in Providence, Rhode Island, and authors of the cookbook Cucina Simpatica; and, most of all, the talented Sarah Leah Chase, author of The Open House Cookbook and Cold Weather Cooking.

Something smells really good! my husband, Jeffrey, exclaims every Friday night when he walks in the door. Most weeks, Jeffrey has been around the world and back and when he walks in that door, I want him to feel that hes really home. What he doesnt realize is that what feels very casual is, in fact, quite deliberate: the music is playing, all the lights are on, there are flowers everywhere, and chicken and onions are roasting in the oven.

I didnt always know how to make a home. It took time and lots of experimentation. Over the thirty-eight years weve been married, Ive tried everythingthe good, the bad, and the ugly. But Ive evolved a style that seems to work for me: big sofas for a nap on Sunday afternoon; comfy reading chairs with good light and a view out the window for daydreaming; great CDs piled up by the stereo; and my favorite old videos next to the television. I like knowing that there are twenty new magazines on the coffee table, delicious French teas in the pantry, and expensive bath bubbles next to the tub. A good home should gather you up in its arms like a warm cashmere blanket, soothe your hurt feelings, and prepare you to go back out into that big bad world tomorrow all ready to fight the dragons.

Im basically a nester. All day long, I feel as though Im batting back the baseballs that are being hurled at me: decisions to make, places to go, cranky people to deal withand when I come home, I want my house to feel serene and beautiful, like the way you feel when you get into a bed piled high with down pillows: youre safe. Jeffrey and I have moved many times in the years weve been married and though weve always had a house (or at least an apartment), Ive never been comfortable until Ive made it a home. When we were first married, Jeffrey was in the Army and we moved to the less-than-cosmopolitan town of Fayetteville, North Carolina, where we rented a little furnished garden apartment. It was probably fairly ordinary, but I thought it was wonderful. The first week, I rolled up my sleeves, cleaned it from top to bottom, made curtains for the windows, painted the bedroom, bought a rug for the living room, and stocked the kitchen. We made friends in the neighborhood, gave dinner parties, and very soon we felt right at home.

After the Army, Jeffrey and I moved to Washington, D.C., where he was in graduate school and I worked for the government. Each time we moved I wanted to do even more to make us feel at home. This time, I rented an unfurnished apartment so I could also choose the furniture. I seem to remember some very 1970s black and white furniture with splashes of purple and yellow. What was I thinking?? But at the time it felt just right. The next time we moved, we bought our first house, which gave me the chance to choose the furniture and decorate the house. This was starting to get really challenging. Unfortunately, I was still learning. The first thing I did in the new house was paper the bedroom with a very pretty blue and white wallpaper printed with Japanese dogwood blossoms. Only when I was finished did I realize that Id hung the paper completely upside down. I couldnt afford to redo it, so for years I woke up every morning to upside-down dogwood branches. More important, though, this was the first house in which I got to design my own kitchen from the ground up and it was the place where I really started to cook. Mastering the Art of French Cooking, by Julia Child, Simone Beck, and Louisette Bertholle, was my bible and my friends were my guinea pigs. I started to have parties on a regular basis and began to realize that friends were also an important part of what made a house feel like home to us.