It's Official: Ina Garten's Memoir Is On Its Way
James Beard Award-winning celebrity chef, New York Times bestselling author, and Emmy Award-winning Food Network host Ina Garten is trying her hand at a new form of public expression — the memoir. Celadon Books, a division of Macmillan Publishers, is set to publish Garten's as-yet-untitled work on October 1 — a detail the multihyphenate just nonchalantly divulged in her Instagram bio.
The process of writing a book, especially one so personal, tends to take longer than creating a viral TikTok, and this one appears to be no different: Garten announced she was writing the memoir for Celadon back in 2019, with a proposed pub date of 2023. At the time, fans opined about a four-year wait; we suppose adding another 12 months won't dampen their ardor; to say Ina Garten is beloved is an understatement. (If you're unfamiliar with her, check out her tips to help you up your cooking game.) With the announcement of an official publication date, fans can finally count down the days.
A life worth chronicling
For someone who's had such astounding success combining cooking and mass media, it might come as a shock that Ina Garten began her professional life writing nuclear energy budgets for the White House Office of Management and Budget in the 1970s. After a fateful pivot into owning a specialty food shop, what followed was two decades of running a successful business, followed by a string of hugely influential cookbooks (over a dozen at last count), a long-running stint as host of "The Barefoot Contessa," and food columns in Oprah, Martha Stewart Living, House Beautiful, and Food Network magazine. Garten's memoir will allow fans to immerse themselves in her notable life story more intimately, exploring her childhood, her marriage, and her feelings on motherhood, according to a 2023 interview conducted by the BBC's Katty Kay in which the beloved culinary personality revealed that "a lot of my decisions were based on my childhood."
Garten's latest cookbook, the bestseller "Go-To Dinners," came out in October 2022, around the time she began hosting "Be My Guest with Ina Garten" — a three-season show that involved Garten inviting celebrity friends to her East Hampton home to share food and conversation. Since that series ended, it's safe to assume the Barefoot Contessa turned her full attention to the upcoming memoir, making October not seem so far away. (In the meantime, you can check to see if there are any things you didn't know about Ina Garten.)