Have Some Decorum: barefoot Contessa

Let’s start today with something big… Big for me. Something you don’t know about me? I am absolutely, unconditionally, with all my heart, the most loyal number one fan of the Barefoot Contessa, Ina Garten. Just after working as a nuclear policy analyst for the White House, Mme. Garten opened a gourmet food shop in the Hamptons and since then has been a cookbook author (nine books), television host, contributor to House Beautiful and her own personal interior designer. I have every single one of her cookbooks and I think I’ve watched every single one of her shows.

So, knowing how much I adore Ina Garten, imagine my surprise today when I opened up my email and saw a letter from her! I literally felt my jaw crack open and my eyes widened. I almost couldn’t believe it. I have my friend Rex to thank for introducing my blog to her (thank you, Rex). Mme. Garten thanked me for including her roasted chicken recipe in my blog a few weeks ago and wished me well with my blog. To me, as I told Rex, this was better than getting a letter from the President of the United States thanking me for my humanitarianism. (That didn’t happen.) Equally as good as seeing Princess Caroline of Monaco a few weeks ago. (That did happen.)

I was so excited I could barely get the words out to tell my husband. My husband has watched every single episode of her cooking show that I have through osmosis because I am the boss of the house and if Ellie wants to watch a Barefoot Contessa marathon all day, we will. Here is what I love about Mme. Garten, the Barefoot Contessa…

She’s not afraid to use butter. She worships her husband, Jeffrey, and he worships her. Her cooking is straightforward, her ingredients are fresh, and she clearly loves to cook and to share her recipes. She loves Paris and the open-air markets. She loves flowers. She is a great decorator. She’s not a b*tch. She eats bread. She is self-made, intelligent, and lives her life with enthusiasm and finds happiness in the small things like vinaigrette. And, she’s jolly. Not fake jolly, real jolly.

My favorite recipe of hers is her beef bourguignon. Did you know the recipe calls for an entire bottle of wine! I think this recipe saved my relationship with my husband once. David was super mad at me, as usual, and this time I secretly knew I was at fault but would not admit it. So what did I do? I slaved all day(an hour and a half) making the most perfect Barefoot Contessa beef bourguignon for him. He loved it and loved me again. Thank you, Ina.

All of her cookbooks are absolutely brilliant. My favorite is her very first cookbook, The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook. The coconut cupcakes are to die for. My other favorite book of hers is obviously, Barefoot in Paris. There are great French recipes and great recommendations for your trip to Paris. Good news, she has a new cookbook coming out in October! This one is titled, Make It Ahead. You can preorder an autographed copy through her website HERE.

You can find the entire Barefoot Contessa cookbook collection HERE.

I encourage all of you to check out her website. Whether you are an experienced cook or a beginner, there is a lot of useful information on her website. My favorite are her tips and her “good ingredients.” This is where she shares her sources for her favorite microplane rasp, French bread baskets, olive oil, cooking twine, platters, baking flour, baking chocolate… everything! Everything you need for your pantry.

I can’t even tell you how much I love her East Hampton house. I have a hard time concentrating on watching her recipes on her TV show because I am busy looking at the background of her kitchen.

You can find more pictures of Mme. Gartner’s East Hampton house HERE.

It gets better… She has an apartment in Paris. She even managed to haul a La Cornue stove up five flights of a windy Parisian staircase. She should receive an award for that alone. There is a great article in Town and Country about her apartment and life in Paris HERE.

As you know, I get wicked panic attacks where I think I’m going to die within the next eight seconds. All my husband has to do is turn on an episode of the Barefoot Contessa and as soon as that theme song comes on I start to relax. By the end of the show, I am good to go again. The Barefoot Contessa is like my own little Xanax. :-)

So thank you, Mme. Gartner, for all of your cookbooks, all of your TV shows and all of the joy that you give to my life and thank you for the email. Merci beaucoup!

*Something else you don’t know about me? When my husband does something to totally annoy me, I secretly give his cashmere sweaters to my daughter. One sweater per annoyance.

A toute!

There is nothing more that I like than having a dinner party. An intimate dinner party. I prefer to entertain with a small group of friends. Whenever you have to cook for the masses, the quality of the food slips. But don’t get me wrong, I do love a big party. Every year for my birthday I invite everyone that I’ve ever known and everyone that I’ve ever liked and disliked. These parties usually get out of hand and end up with someone asleep in the driveway.

The first time I was moving to Paris in 2009, I had a huge bon voyage party. I had the party at my awesome friend Diandra’s house which was being rented by my other awesome friend, Susan. One big happy family up there at the villa. We have had zillions of dinner parties at this house and they have all been rather formal so I decided this time, this party, we were going to let our hair down a bit. I decided we were going to have a Mexican fiesta. First things first, I turned off all of the water in the house. There was no way anyone was drinking water, only tequila. I told every guest to bring a bottle of tequila. If you wanted any water you were going to have to drink out of the toilet, the pool or the koi pond.

I ordered Mexican food from crappy Baja Fresh. Lots of it. One of my favorite awesome friends is a self-proclaimed high maintenance New York Upper East Side/Hamptons on the weekends Jewish-American princess and when she saw the platters of sloppy burritos on the beautiful 18^th-century Spanish dining room table, her mouth dropped open. I’m pretty sure I heard an “Oy vey.” She was horrified but guess what? Nine tequila shots later she was shoving taquitos down her throat at an alarming rate. No one is too good for a taquito! I also hired a karaoke/DJ for the night. This is the best move I’ve ever made.

Everyone was a bit shy in the beginning with the DJ and karaoke machine because these are hoity-toity Santa Barbara “society people.” But after one of my awesome friends from LA, Rachel, started singing Madonna’s Like a Virgin and was rolling all over the sisal rug… The floodgates were open and all hell broke loose. I remember a bunch of girls, including myself, standing on the antique Chinese coffee table, with microphones singing with a real live Beach Boy (family friend) to California Girls at the top of our lungs. Things moved into the dining room at one point to the piano where my other awesome friend, Steve, played Elton John and everyone sang along with nearly tears in their eyes. Tequila will do that to you. The party lasted until sun up. The next morning we found people asleep everywhere. Like, fancy people. Fancy people sleeping in their cocktail dresses in the Japanese tea garden.

However, however, however I prefer a smaller party where I can retain some of my dignity. For these parties my favorite thing to cook is roasted chicken and vegetables. Add in a crusty baguette with salty French butter, a bottle or two of crisp white wine, and a homemade dessert and you’ve got yourself a dinner party!

Now, don’t forget, I read cookbooks like they are romance novels and I watch cooking shows like they are porn. I know my way around a roasted chicken. Roasted chicken is a very particular little dish. Everyone has their own way, their own style and their own preferences. Do you baste the bird? Butter or olive oil? Do you brine the bird? What’s the best temperature? To truss or not to truss? What’s the best resting time? Blah blah blah. My advice? Experiment for yourself and see what works best for you but start with some good basics. For this, I would turn to Thomas Keller, Barefoot Contessa Ina Garten or Daniel Boulud. Here are their recipes…