Ina Garten stopped by Late Night With Seth Meyers to discuss her new memoir, Be Ready When the Luck Happens.
Garten’s memoir, published last month by Crown, tells the story of her life and career as a White House budget analyst turned cookbook author and television chef, known for her popular Barefoot Contessa cooking show. A critic for Kirkus praised the book as “an entertaining foray into this well-loved cooking host’s illustrious life.”
Meyers asked Garten about her experience working in the White House.
“I wrote the budget for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission,” Garten said. “They give that to 25-year-olds?…I really taught myself how to cook when I was working in the White House. I had no idea that’s what I was going to do, but I got to the point where I was 30, and I thought, This just isn’t me. This isn’t any fun. I want to have fun.”
Meyers brought up a section in the book in which Garten writes about catering a party for “the biggest drug dealer on Long Island.”
“He said, ‘We want all the caviar, all the smoked salmon,’ the really expensive things that I could make,” Garten recalled. “And I went to do this party, and I gave everybody their instructions.…I came back to the party, and nothing had been eaten. And I thought, Oh, my god, they hate my food. And the employees were like, ‘No, don’t worry. They’re busy in the bedroom right now.’”
Garten said she returned the next day to pick up her platters and her payment for the party, where the host offered to tip her.
“He said, Do you want some blow?,” Garten said. “I was like, Excuse me? Who’s tipping who here? Where am I? And then I realized he was talking about cocaine. I was completely confused.”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
