The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook

This first cookbook by Ina Garten, the founder and once owner of the Long Island catering and upscale deli, `barefoot contessa' is a delightful cross between the high end Martha Stewart `Entertaining' and the very local and very Southern `The Lady and Sons' by Paula Deen. By delightful coincidence, all three have shows on the food network. This book shines by being more accessible than Martha Stewart's work for large scale entertaining and by being more selective in its recipes than Paula Deen's books. Deen and Stewart's works both have their virtues, but Garten shines in making the best of its particular strengths.Both Stewart and Garten claim Julia Child as a culinary godmother, and both do us a service by making Child's style of food easier to make for the non-foodie.The greatest value of Garten's selection of dishes and her recipes for same are that they were all prepared at `the barefoot contessa', so there is no question that the recipes work. This claim is boldly made on the dust jacket. I will add the opinion that since the dishes were a staple of Garten's store and catering business, they were popular with a fairly discriminating clientele. Having seen pictures on Garten's TV show of `the barefoot contessa', I can see the store's customers probably had pretty high expectations of their food purveyors.I can back this observation up by the opinion that I find almost all of Garten's recipes very appealing, reasonably healthy, and reasonably easy to make. This is so true that I expect this will become my first choice book when I simply do not know what I want to make, and do not want to spend a lot of time, or at least a lot of effort in the preparation.That said, I have to recommend this book as both an excellent first cookbook and an excellent resource for entertaining. By being restaurant and catering recipes, most recipes have the added virtue of being able to remain appetizing after 8 hours in a chilled display case. There are very few prepared or commercially processed ingredients and there are very few expensive and delicate ingredients like foie gras or truffles.I found a few gaffs, mistakes which Ms. Garten's food network on screen talent have repudiated. My favorite geek Alton Brown, my hero Mario Batali, and my imaginary sweetheart Sara Moulton have all reputed the folklore that salt toughens cooking beans. If this were a teaching cookbook or a book by a reputed culinary authority, I think less of the book, but Ms. Garten has succeeded in her primary goal. Another weakness is the `glossary of kitchen terms'. A single picture defines each of only six terms. I'm sure that these pictures may be of some value to amateur cooks, but the simplest of sentences in explanation would have made them 100% more useful.As I have suggested above, Ms. Garten has not given us a replacement for Martha Stewart's classic. In a discussion of a crudite platter for example, Ms. Garten gives us a three thinly texted pages while Martha gives us eight oversized pages packed with recipes and step by step lessons.Ms. Garten's book does outdo Martha in one regard, at least for people living in the New York metropolitan area. Her tables of sources for both food and equipment is very thorough and up to date. My only objection is her many references to Eli Zabar's breads and stores. Once would have been quite enough. An even better suggestion would have been to rate the suppliers in the list at the end of the book.I highly recommend this book to anyone, especially as a first cookbook for people living in the New York area.

I love Ina's books. This is the first one, and I had never added it to my collection. I'm glad I have it.

I’m a fairly new convert to the barefoot Contessa cookbook. I have to admit, enjoying all of her cookbooks and I find that her recipes are fool proof. The pictures of the food are excellent and inspiring..

Absolutely love this cookbook and never had any of hers and I shall be buying more of them. So nice we can get older cookbooks that we are just now hearing about from a friend. Her recipes are tried and true and come out just the way they're supposed to when you cook them.

It’s a beautiful cookbook but it has more deserts than I would like.

I'm not a chef and would consider myself about average, maybe slightly above average (but determined) in my ability to cook. I had been seeking one cookbook for quite some time that gave me a solid core of recipes that I could turn to repeatedly and A) not have to worry if I'd hit the mark each time I prepared the meal; B) not be so complex and ingredient spastic that I'd be in the kitchen the entire day/night; and finally C) where the cost to make the meal wouldn't be prohibitive due to ingredients I wouldn't normally keep on hand and/or only use for one single recipe (screw that.)I'm single and I live alone thus, I wanted recipes that could be made for guests but also that could be reduced so that I could make them for myself (I like to cook once on the weekend for my upcoming work week.) And this is certainly a great book to fit all of these qualifications.These recipes are flawless and very simple to put together though that doesn't equal simple or boring tastes. On the contrary, the tastes can be quite complex.Because these recipes are so clean and put together with a subtle elegance a person should *not* substitute subpar ingredients and expect superior flavoring. When a recipe calls for fresh herbs or spices (or fresh grated, fresh roasted, fresh milled, fresh squeezed, etc.) there is a reason for it. If this same person then gets dull food because of using margarine, old spices, jarred or prepackaged ingredients, they can't then complain about the recipe since they didn't follow it.I don't own a full size food processor (just a 1 1/2 cup version good for pretty much only chopping). Nor do I own a stand mixer. I have just my two hands, a hand-held mixer, wooden spoons and one whisk and so sometimes recipes (particularly deserts) can be a challenge for me. I've not found that to be the case for these recipes.FWIW, Parmesan smashed potatoes - I can honestly say that at 47 years of age, these are the best mashed potatoes I've ever eaten in my life.Excellent cookbook in design, layout, index, content.Flawless recipes - they WORK.Perfect execution of the recipes is a breeze due to clear and easy to read instruction.

This book is just like Ina Garten-Top Quality!

I’m a big fan of Ina Garten and often go to look for her recipes. Having an in a book is concise and easy to use.