Ina and the BEST brownies

Welcome to the February/March round for Cook the Book. I am hosting Be Ready When the Luck Happens by Ina Garten. You can read the announcement post here.

I’ve been posting a lot of Ina fan-girl posts lately but it’s taken me a while to get this one ready.

About the book:

Here, for the first time, Ina Garten presents an intimate, entertaining, and inspiring account of her remarkable journey.

Ina’s gift is to make everything look easy, yet all her accomplishments have been the result of hard work, audacious choices, and exquisite attention to detail. In her unmistakable voice (no one tells a story like Ina), she brings her past and her process to life in a high-spirited and no-holds-barred memoir that chronicles decades of personal challenges, adventures (and misadventures) and unexpected career twists, all delivered with her signature combination of playfulness and purpose.

From a difficult childhood to meeting and marrying the love of her life, Jeffrey, while still in college, from a boring bureaucratic job in Washington, DC to answering an ad for a specialty food store in the Hamptons, from the owner of one Barefoot Contessa shop to author of bestselling cookbooks and celebrated television host, Ina has blazed her own trail and, in the meantime, taught millions of people how to cook and entertain. Now, she invites them to come closer to experience her story in vivid detail and to share the important life lessons she learned along the way: do what you love because you’ll be really good at it, swing for the fences, and always Be Ready When the Luck Happens.

About the author:

Depending on how you know her, Ina is either a beloved cookbook author, a Food Network star with lots of devotees, or a humble specialty food shop owner. After reading this memoir, I feel like I know each one of these Inas better.

What I thought….

I decided that during the months of February and March I would dive into Ina’s cookbooks. Again, I started out strong and then the posts started dwindling a bit (but I have some drafts in my archives so stay tuned). I loved every single one of her cookbooks and Be Ready when the Luck Happens was no different.

I loved reading this book and learning more about Ina, especially her early life (with some unfeeling parents) and her college years and White House career. She is pretty transparent in this work and I thought at one point she might have admitted to doing some illegal substances with a well-known NYC foodie. (No judgement.) She admits that her marriage (which seems ideal and perfect now) once hit some rocky spots with Jeffrey and her actually separating. She chronicles the feelings of coming to age during the feminist movement but still thinking she needed to hold on to some of the domestic traditions that held her back.

Ina’s tone is that of her TV show, calm and soothing, even when she’s talking about serious things like her marriage and breaking up a business partnership. I could just hear her voice as I was reading.

The food:

I was totally surprised there were not more recipes in this book. As with most foodie memoirs, I expected a recipe to bookend every chapter. Ina only does that where she thinks appropriate. Some of the recipes she includes are not even attributed to her (and she gives credit where credit is due).

I was pleased to find the best brownie recipe ever in these pages. (You can find Ina’s Outrageous Brownies Recipe at the Food Network if you don’t have a copy of this book.) This recipe makes a huge half sheet of brownies.

It’s a bit expensive to make (pound of butter, 3 cups of nuts, 24 ounces of chocolate chips, etc.) but it is well worth it. Her original recipe calls for walnuts but I used sliced almonds. It worked out well.

I guess I am now a definitive and eternal fan of Ina’s. I will certainly seek out her new cookbooks as they come out. And, I just made her Salty Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk Cookies. Oh, my!

What’s next?

For the April/May 2025 edition Simona (briciole) is hosting The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club by Helen Simonson (May 2024).

I’m linking up with  March’s Foodies Read.