The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook

What a great combination of tips for entertaining, great recipes, and beautiful photos that help you visualize your results! I bought this book because of its approach of doing 95% of the food prep ahead of time so the host is free to spend time with the guests. I was planning a finger-food party and didn't want to spend the whole time in the kitchen. I tried many of the recipes along with some of my stand-bys. The food turned out great, and thanks to Ina's tips about how to arrange platters, they also looked gorgeous. In case you're curious, the recipes I made were: the lemon chicken skewers with satay sauce (best satay I've ever had), shrimp salad in endive leaves (a suggested variation on the lobster salad; delicious), smoked salmon tea sandwiches, turkey tea sandwiches (both good, but I surprised myself by preferring the turkey ones), veggie platter (looked lovely), pan-fried onion dip (to DIE for and the recipe everyone wanted), sun-dried tomato dip, mini maple scones (I've made this one several times now, including for the governor of Vermont!), and sausage in puff pastry. My friends really enjoyed the offerings, and so did I!One thing to note: it's true that most of the prep can be done ahead of time, as long as you have LOTS of refrigerator space!Her advice for how to arrange various kinds of platters (veggies, desserts, etc.) was incredible. It really is easy to make things beautiful!And yes, as others have observed, the Indonesian Ginger Chicken is probably the best baked chicken I have ever eaten. I hated to discard the marinade, it was that good.I love this book. I have many, many recipes left to try, and based on how much we loved the ones I've make so far, I want to try them all!

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.

Good for new and experienced chefs! Ina has such a great philosophy for cooking. Recipes you will use.

Perfect condition. Prompt service.

Great