**spoiler alert** Really mixed feelings about this book. I hadn’t heard of Ina Garten really, I mean. Yes I have distantly heard of Barefoot Contessa **spoiler alert** Really mixed feelings about this book. I hadn’t heard of Ina Garten really, I mean. Yes I have distantly heard of Barefoot Contessa but I actually picked up this memoir after seeing rave reviews.
There were parts of this memoir I found very inspiring or relatable. Whether it was their attitude on living cheaply abroad, or relationship struggles, or wanting to go after what you want in your own way. I also really enjoyed some of the food/scenery descriptions. I also (despite what it may sound like later in this review) thought her relationship seemed Lovely and very sweet, it is amazing to see that two people were able to grow together for so long. Both of them in their own off-beat ways.
However this book went on a bit� too long and the pluckiness that started off entertaining started to wear on me. I don’t want to claim she hasn’t worked hard, I really feel she has. But she doesn’t seem at all aware (title aside) of how Insanely Lucky she has been or privileged. As a Gen Z in her mid-twenties I can barely fathom buying a first house (though we sure are trying) never-mind making “real estate� and “interior design� my “hobbies. That’s insanely fortunate. She doesn’t seem to realize most people’s dads aren’t mid-life crisis buying one of two houses designed by a world-famous architect that they can then get married in (another thing I stress about paying for!)
That falling in and out of insanely successful businesses and hoping the money appears (which it somehow always did!) is not a usual experience. I have never even been overseas because I simply cannot afford it. Our partners aren’t job hopping from success to success and having our bosses frontload any expense to make our long distance relationship work. And it’s great she has had such a great life but Ina, most of us CANNOT AFFORD to be ready when the luck happens. I wish!
Her writing also started to slog a bit, and was a bit repetitive at times. More than once she started to sound like that 50s housewife she apparently wasn’t trying to be. I am sure Jeffrey is lovely but you don’t Need to tell me that 30 times a chapter. She talks about re-reading her old letters at the end and sliding out a window in a barrel in college? WHERE IS THAT MEMOIR? Even her time in Paris on $5 a day is largely glossed over. Lots of glossing, lots of marriage talk, maybe not enough on the fun little day-to-day details.
Some parts of this were very sweet but ultimately tone-deaf. Even more so once the celebrity besties in the Hamptons and Paris, friends of friends and guests on her show started rolling in. I would love to have a life like Ina’s but I really am not holding my breath.
However I did enjoy her passion for food, her desire to uplift her younger employees, and her stubbornness. Her recipes did seem good too, might have to pick up one of those cookbooks (or find the recipes online).
SPOILERS
“Here are my plans/dreams. We go to Paris once, at least, in the next five years. We won't have much money but that will be all the fun. Maybe we could go camping. But instead of touring the Louvre, etc., I'd like to get up at 4 a.m. and walk the streets...down the Champs de L'Esse [his spelling!] while the sun comes up... around the markets... along the Seine. That's us...not the fancy restaurants, etc.�
“…grapes in the middle, put the cheeses back around the grapes, then a few groupings of strawberries and crackers, and then stop yourself." Anna taught me that often, "less is more," and quality is everything.�
“As a finishing touch, I added an old-fashioned screen door to the entrance-the sound of that door slamming shut was the essence of summer, of vacations and carefree times, a signal to relax, indulge, and eat!�
Read the book in almost exactly 3 hours (thanks Libby!)
It went much, much faster than I expected. Especially with how dense the text/topics could be.Read the book in almost exactly 3 hours (thanks Libby!)
It went much, much faster than I expected. Especially with how dense the text/topics could be. Maybe it helped that I saw the movie a few years ago? A movie my partner and I actually only watched because my best friend said I “had to� and I “couldn’t look up anything about it first�. Which. By the way. Definitely the best way to watch it, what the hell.
But anyway recently I have been into similar thrillers and saw this mentioned a few times. I never intended to read this (or watch the movie again for that matter) but now it seems I will be doing both. This was so good and engaging!!! The repetition chapter towards the end?! SO Well Done. Probably didn’t hurt that I read this into the night.
I really loved how this unspooled and yeah definitely going to need to sit through that movie again for comparison purposes. I haven’t seen it since around when it came out I think.
I also got this weird intense deja vu around the throwing away cups scene. I don’t know why. Maybe from the movie? I guess? But it felt like I had read it before and I definitely haven’t. Might have been similar to a scene in another book I have read OR I did read a lot of explanation articles after watching the movie so maybe it was quoted in there. Either way only added to the eeriness for me, for sure.
SPOILERS
“He never let me finish my story. I never kissed Doug after our lesson. Jake assumed. He assumed I kissed Doug. But a kiss needs two people who want to kiss, or it's something else. Here's what really happened. I went back to the car that time. I leaned in the window and opened my hand, revealing the tiny wrinkled candy wrapper, the one Doug gave me. I uncrumpled it and read it:
My heart, my heart alone with its lapping waves of song, longs to touch this green world of the sunny day. Hello!�
"It seems like more people, if not depressed, are unhappy these days. Would you agree?" "I'm not sure I'd say that. It does seem like there's more opportunity to reflect on sadness and feelings of inadequacy, and also a pressure to be happy all the time. Which is impossible."
“I always thought I would light that candle one day. I never did. The more time passed, the harder it became to light. Whenever I thought an occasion might be special enough to burn the candle, it felt like I was settling. So I would wait for a better occasion. It's still there, unlit, on top of a bookcase. There was never an occasion special enough. How could that be?�...more
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