Ina Garten was ready for the luck

NEW YORK, NY - OCTOBER 13: Ina Garten signs cookbooks during Food Network's 25th Birthday Party Celebration at the 11th annual New York City Wine & Food Festival in 2018 in New York City.

Amy Sussman / Getty Images for Food Network

Thirteen bestselling cookbooks, a thriving food business in the Hamptons that she sold decades ago, and now her memoir "Be Ready When the Luck Happens" has hit number one on the New York Times bestseller list.

None of that was in Ina Garten's plan.

Her legendary career began when she was working in Washington DC as a somewhat discontented government employee, and saw an ad for a food store in the Hamptons.

For this Thanksgiving, a holiday celebrating gratitude and food, we take a look at how Ina Garten built a successful business, powerful brand and happy life.

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Transcript

(SOUNDBITE OF HUGO WINTERHALTER AND HIS ORCHESTRA'S "SONG OF THE BAREFOOT CONTESSA")

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

Over the past two decades, that zippy theme song under pictures of good food, Hampton's beaches and a beautiful kitchen has become synonymous with Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa. The former government policy wonk herself has become synonymous with effortless, tasty and simply elegant cooking. Store-bought is fine, she often says.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "BAREFOOT CONTESSA")

INA GARTEN: I mean, by the time you cook the eggplant, sliced all the ingredients and assembled it, who wants to start making marinara sauce? Not me.

SHAPIRO: And then there are the small gestures of encouragement she gives her viewers like, how easy was that?

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "BAREFOOT CONTESSA")

GARTEN: I mean, so far, almost everything has been in your vegetable bin or your pantry.

SHAPIRO: It's this philosophy of simplicity, indulgence and absolutely no guilt...

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "BAREFOOT CONTESSA")

GARTEN: So it's a half a pound of butter. I know it's a lot of butter, but it's really good.

SHAPIRO: ...That has made the Barefoot Contessa - Ina, to her many fans - so beloved. But as a kid, Garten felt anything but loved, raised in a cold and sometimes abusive family. It wasn't until she met the now-famous Jeffrey that she began to find herself.

GARTEN: Jeffrey took somebody who was really very insecure and helped me find my voice.

SHAPIRO: And she built an empire. CONSIDER THIS - for this Thanksgiving, a holiday celebrating gratitude and food, we'll take a look at how Ina Garten built a successful business, powerful brand and happy life.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

SHAPIRO: From NPR, I'm Ari Shapiro.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

SHAPIRO: It's CONSIDER THIS FROM NPR. There are the cooking shows, 13 bestselling cookbooks, a thriving food business in the Hamptons that she sold decades ago, and now a memoir that hit No. 1 on the New York Times Best Seller list. None of that was in Ina Garten's plan. Her legendary career began when she was working in Washington, D.C., as a somewhat discontented government employee. One day, she was sitting at her desk at the Office of Management and Budget and came across an ad in the paper. Ina Garten told me she hadn't seen or thought of the ad in years until the co-writer of her new memoir, "Be Ready When The Luck Happens," dug it out of the archives.

GARTEN: And when we saw the ad, it's a really stupid little ad. And what appealed to me about this ad is incredible. I mean, first of all, it was, like, it was a shop in the Hamptons spelled S-H-O-P-P-E.

SHAPIRO: So pretentious.

GARTEN: I thought nobody would answer that ad.

(LAUGHTER)

SHAPIRO: The phrase that stands out to me in the ad is unlimited potential.

GARTEN: Yeah (laughter). That wasn't true, either (laughter).

SHAPIRO: And yet, it was uncannily accurate.

GARTEN: It was, actually. You're right. I hadn't thought about that, but you're right.

SHAPIRO: Garten didn't grow up in a family that valued great food or entertaining. In the 1950s, her mother ran a traditional home where food was strictly fuel.

GARTEN: My mother thought food was for nourishment. My mother really didn't connect with people. So I think that she did what she thought a mother should do, but didn't really understand what it was about. And so she got food on the table, but it was broiled chicken and canned peas, and it was devoid of any flavor. And it was also devoid of any pleasure. There were no carbohydrates. There was no fat. There was nothing that would give anybody any sense of well-being.

SHAPIRO: So you didn't get your love of food from your parents, but there was one detail from your family history that stood out to me, which is that your grandfather, who immigrated from Russia, opened a candy store.

GARTEN: Isn't that extraordinary?

SHAPIRO: Do you think you inherited something from him?

GARTEN: I think I inherited something more from my grandmother, who loved to cook. And many years later, when my grandfather had a business, which we euphemistically called scrap metal, but it was really basically a junkyard where they separated parts of cars. Every - all the employees knew that they could come next door where my grandparents lived and just help themselves to anything in the refrigerator. And my grandmother was always cooking.

SHAPIRO: So where do you think you got your love of cooking from?

GARTEN: I think it's kind of a - I can't tell you. It's either in my DNA, or it's - I was so desperate for flavor when I - and joy when I was a kid...

SHAPIRO: (Laughter).

GARTEN: ...That I always wanted to cook. And I think food was never given as in the way I feel. It's something you do for somebody you love, and it's a way to take care of them. It was just missing from my childhood.

SHAPIRO: One thing that stood out to me as I read this book was that while people think of you as a great cook and entertainer, you also had to figure out pricing spreadsheets and how to manage a staff and figure out a supply chain. And eventually, you became your own art director for all of your cookbooks, all while churning out a thousand baguettes a day.

GARTEN: (Laughter).

SHAPIRO: So how have you handled the learning curve of taking on all the new tasks that have been thrown at you your whole life?

GARTEN: You know, I think I seek them out. I think I'm not happy if I don't have a challenge that I think I can't meet. So when I was in a specialty food store with no experience at all, I asked Diana Stratta, who sold me the store, to stay with me for a month to teach me what I needed to know, thinking, of course, you could learn it in a month. She taught me a lot of things that were really important, but I had to figure the rest out. And I really like that process. I like taking something really complicated and sorting out how to do it. When I sold the store, I thought, well, maybe my career is behind me. Maybe the best thing I've ever done will have been "Barefoot Contessa."

And then, when I started writing cookbooks, I realized all of those years I spent running a specialty food store and selling people things that they like to eat at home - roast chicken, roast carrots - simple food - coconut cupcakes - that informed my experience writing a cookbook because I was writing a cookbook for people who were cooking at home. And then when I was doing it on TV, I'd written cookbooks, so I knew how to do it step by step, and I felt confident.

SHAPIRO: I don't know why this detail stands out to me, but there was a night that you slept on a shelf of your...

GARTEN: (Laughter).

SHAPIRO: ...Shop because you were just working...

GARTEN: I was...

SHAPIRO: ...All hours of all day and night.

GARTEN: I was too tired to go home (laughter).

SHAPIRO: So it really doesn't come easy. I mean, it really does cost great sacrifice.

GARTEN: I think that it's really important to know that you need to do the work, that you can't learn it from somebody else. You have to learn it by your own experience. I mean, it's like - I always say this. Anybody can fly an airplane. It's what you do when something goes wrong that's really - that's when you really learn how to fly your plane.

SHAPIRO: Since you brought it up, you have a pilot's license, too.

GARTEN: Yeah, but luckily, for people in the air, I don't use it.

(LAUGHTER)

SHAPIRO: Still. When you were a kid, your father would always ask what you accomplished each day. And one of the revelations that you have reached as an adult is that doing what you love can be an accomplishment. And so when people ask you how to turn doing what they love into their life's work, what do you tell them?

GARTEN: Figure it out. There's always a way to figure out how to do what you love doing. You love traveling? Go into the travel business. When I had my store, I had a customer whose specialty was helping people figure out what their career should be. And I said to her, what do you ask them? I mean, what do you need to know in order to help people? And she said, I ask them what they used to do when they were 10. Because that's what you would do when you were just doing things for fun. You were doing what you felt like doing. Not like you should be a lawyer. You should be a doctor. You could just do whatever you wanted to do. You were putting on plays with your friends? Maybe you should be in theater.

SHAPIRO: These days, if I say something is in the style of Ina Garten, everyone knows what that means. Like, welcoming...

GARTEN: Do they?

SHAPIRO: ...Fresh - oh, absolutely - abundant, indulgent without being fussy or over the top. There is an Ina Garten style.

GARTEN: Thank you.

SHAPIRO: It is comfort food with an upgrade. How did you...

GARTEN: Wow.

SHAPIRO: ...Figure out what that style - I'm surprised that you're surprised to hear that. I would think that that's, like, deeply baked into your DNA.

GARTEN: Well, I love that description of what I love to do. You know, I always think it's easy to make something simple. It's hard to make something simple and really interesting. So I've over the years, kind of embraced where those two things intersect. But then I'm always looking for what can I do to - what simple thing can I do to make this taste better? I remember I was making a lentil soup with my assistant, and I said to her, taste it, and she tasted it. And then I thought, there's just something missing. And she said, it's delicious. It doesn't need anything.

And I said to her, you know, I just - I - and I went to the refrigerator, and I took out a bottle of red wine vinegar. And maybe I put a tablespoon in this huge pot of lentil soup. And I said, now taste it. And it's - I've learned over the years that it's the thing that has - gives something an edge. And vinegar or lemon juice or parmesan, something like that really kind of wakes up all the flavors in a dish. And so that's what I'm always looking for. And it doesn't have to be a complicated thing or an expensive thing. It can be something that's already in your refrigerator.

SHAPIRO: Well, Ina Garten, it has been such a pleasure talking to you. Thank you for spending the time with us.

GARTEN: Thank you so much, Ari. It's great to talk to you.

SHAPIRO: Her new memoir is called "Be Ready When The Luck Happens." This episode was produced by Vincent Acovino and Connor Donevan. It was edited by Courtney Dorning. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

SHAPIRO: It's CONSIDER THIS FROM NPR. I'm Ari Shapiro. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.