On Ina Garten and her cookbooks.
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Anonymous
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So, I am mostly an Ina virgin. I know of her, but that's about it. I see her oft mentioned on here, and I'm intrigued.
I'm not much of a TV watcher, and I'm sure her show is awesome (I think the few times I did see it, I thought it was great) but I would love to hear cookbook recommendations. Also would be in hearing other TV personality cookbook recommendations. I don't care if they're complicated or whatnot. I'm a confident kitchen warrior, and just adore cookbooks besides that. Some read erotica. I read food. Thanks!! |
Anonymous
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I like her Make it Ahead book, Barefoot in Paris and Barefoot Contessa Family Style books.
But honestly find myself looking up her recipes on the web more often than not. I have a few Rachael Ray books. She often gets a bad rap but we have been happy with the food. |
Anonymous
| I like family style the best, but there are good recipes in all. Also most (all?) are online. |
Anonymous
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I like Nigella Lawson. The first recipe I made was her chocolate and raspberry pavlova -- it's easy to make and a real showstopper. I've been hooked ever since. Ina is ok. Some people swear by her but I've had mixed results with her recipes. I made her Chinese Chicken Salad one time that had peanut butter in the dressing. It was awful...so, so, bad. I've had good luck with Giada, too.
The Art of French Cooking is one of my cooking bibles and Southern Living magazine has really excellent recipes as well. |
Anonymous
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Early ones are best:
Original Parties Family style Paris is great but stuff is harder. I found the later cookbooks are just recycled versions of earlier recipes. |
Anonymous
| DH makes her roasted chicken. It is SO GOOD! |
Anonymous
| I've had good success with several of her recipes. I only have one of her cookbooks (How Easy is That?), but I use a lot of her recipes from foodnetwork.com. If I'm doing anything Italian, I go for Giada recipes instead. |
Anonymous
Shes an overweight overrated cook who is married to a gay man,who has the most annoying voice and loves to throw around terms like "use good olive oil", a total phony with the MOST annoying laugh. I love Giada and Michael Chiarelli |
Anonymous
Wait, you don't find it pretentious when Giada annunciates every Italian word that average Americans mispronounce? 
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Anonymous
| I love her recipes, though a lot of them are heavy on butter and need to be "special occasion" type dishes. They are always a success. I think the original cookbook, Parties, Paris, and Foolproof are the best ones. |
Anonymous
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As a working mother of three I am obsessed with her cookbook "How Easy is That?"
I also love that she won't use hard-to-find ingredients or a million of the simple ingredients. The recipes on this book are easy to throw together and delicious. She writes about how she really doesn't like to spend more than 30 minutes on a meal and that is exactly what I think too. |
Anonymous
| Love Ina's books. Simple recipes that's Always turn out well. I like cooking for a crowd and snap up whatever one Costco has. (They carry her books a lot.) |
Anonymous
+1. Great book! |
Anonymous
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Ina Garten's recipes are simple and useful for relatively inexperienced and unadventurous cooks. Nothing wrong with that -- and even an accomplished home cook will find a few dishes of Ina's that are worth adding to a basic repertoire. But, OP, if you're a confident cook in search of food porn, you're going to find Ina's books a little plain vanilla aren't you? |
Anonymous
Not the PP you're responding to, but the word is "enunciates," and Giada was born in Italy. She moved here at age 5. |