Hi! My name is Tess, and I live in a 600-square-foot New York City studio with my husband. As you might assume, approximately zero things about my life are similar to Ina Garten's, and yet I love her. I love her! I love her like Millie Bobby Brown loves a Kardashian, like a teen with six Instagram accounts loves BTS, like a woman who cooks as catharsis loves a lady whose entire life is exactly that. I 👏 love 👏 Ina!!!!!
And so, in the first week of my new job here at Delish, I found myself with the assignment of living like Ina for an entire week, no matter what it entailed. What follows is the story of someone who had no idea what she was getting herself into — the story of someone who now sees her idol in an entirely different light.
This adventure began at 5 p.m. on Memorial Day, at which point I wandered into a Manhattan Whole Foods and almost turned around and gave up immediately. Before I did, though, I realized if I were to really live like Ina for a week, I'd have to do more than just make her recipes; I'd have to lean in to her entire lifestyle. And that meant taking advantage of all my resources: I dispatched my husband — my Jeffrey (whose real name is Michael) — to schlep around the store getting all the things I just didn't want to. Feeling much better about how the week was to going to go, I headed home, ready to make a bleu cheese burger ('twas Memorial Day, after all). Also old-fashioned potato salad (... I said it was Memorial Day). Also, green beans with shallots (for health, of course).
Please note Ina refers to all of these as beginner-level recipes. She also allots no more than 10 to 30 minutes for each.
I sat down for dinner at ... 9 p.m. By 9:25 p.m., I was sated. By 9.40 p.m., I was back in the kitchen prepping chicken salad sandwiches for the week ahead. By 11 p.m., I was exhausted but proud of the four buttery, heavy vats of food I'd made. Also, I was suspicious.
I woke up decidedly not refreshed from the long weekend, but hungry. I made myself a small bin of salty oatmeal and some hot coffee (yup — à la Ina). It was completely not worth taking a photo of, so I instead packed up my mayo-forward lunch and headed to work, knowing it was a completely weird mid-day desk meal in a new office setting. In fact, that's how I described it to my coworkers of four whole days in a morning meeting: "Please no one judge me — I have an extremely mayo-heavy lunch today and probably will for the rest of the week."
After slurping down my lunch, the full weight of what I'd taken on hit me.
There is no way I can cook breakfast, lunch, and dinner for a week, I thought. I do not have the time, energy, or money for this, I realized. I don't walk in my kitchen barefoot because I'm terrified of the cockroaches that live there, and Ina 100 percent doesn't have cockroaches in her kitchen, I concluded.
I let all of this marinate for a bit, allowing myself the time it took for my parturient potato salad to pass (... what? Ina poops, too.) to decide how I'd handle the week ahead.
By that time, I'd channeled anxiety into a plan. I promptly cancelled all my plans for the week and created a five-day menu, all of which was to be executed with Ina's calm, grace, and make-it-ahead fastidiousness. Because if you can't fetch your own cockroaches from under the kitchen sink, run them through a sieve, and make your own cockroach milk, store bought is fine. Right, @Ina? I could do it.
All this led me back to Whole Foods during its witching hour (6 p.m.), searching for everything I needed for the week ahead: at least a dozen sticks of butter, all the fruits and vegetables in the store, premium cheeses, freshly baked breads, cups of unprocessed wheat bran (wtf, Ina?), pearled farro (Ina, come on), and more.
Onward.
I rose at 6 a.m. with overripe bananas, gigantic organic raisins, all the baking essentials I could find, and unprocessed oat bran (sorry, IG, it's the best I could do) in front of me. After waking up my husband to tell him there was no fucking way I would do this alone, he got to work making fresh peach bellinis while I tackled chunky banana bran muffins. Again, both "beginner" recipes. Again, both hours-long endeavors.
By 8 a.m., I was vaguely buzzed and extremely sweaty, stomping around my kitchen in combat boots under the guise of digestion but really to ensure I can make sure cockroach milk immediately should the situation call for it. By 8:45, I have pooped twice (... do you really mean to tell me you really don't think Ina is constantly pooping?) and am ready for work.
I threw together another chicken salad sandwich, knowing I had to get ahead of the game for the rest of the week if I wanted to reach Ina-levels of togetherness. I shouted at Michael Jeffrey to break out Make It Ahead and went back to Whole Foods during the day to get whatever I need to make an insane gourmet meal that'd last us days. He works, but that was irrelevant this week. He G-chatted me the game plan and I came home early from work, armed with the knowledge that anything Ina says takes an hour will actually take me two or three.
As a team, we tackled the (advanced!!!) zucchini and goat cheese tart, the (intermediate!!!!) slow-roasted spiced pork, and the (easy!!!!!) baked farro and butternut squash. The tart featured whatever goat cheese D'Agastino's had, as we did not have time to milk a goat, nor did they have Montrachet, Ina's preferred brand. The pork came out looking pulled, as we just could not figure out how to slice it nicely, and the farro was just ... it was just ugly, OK? It all tasted fantastic — truly! — but I was sweaty and so, so tired.
Wait, also! At some point I made peanut butter and jelly bars for dessert, Ina. I don't even remember when I did it, but I did. I hope you're listening. I know you'd be proud.
Having made all these things ahead, I woke up less stressed. Not only did I have muffins, oatmeal, bellinis, and dessert bars as breakfast options, but I was also looking at either chicken salad, pork mush and grain mush, or fancy tart for lunch. God knows I had enough for dinner, too! I went to work as cool as vegetables growing in an East Hampton breeze and worried about none of it.
...until Michael Jeffrey texted me that our fridge was overflowing and we had to get rid of some of this food and I had to deal with it because he was over it. Full of Garten gumption, I told him to relaaaaax and invite friends over for a dinner party. We'd do as Ina would — it was fine!
Sure, it turns out — per Parties! – that Ina plans for these things a week in advance, and, sure, she matches placemats to flowers to entire rooms to her guests' auras and beyond, and sure, my table seats two people and I don't own any napkins, but Ina's rules state "parties are easy to prepare and fun for everyone, including the host!"
She's not wrong — if you make everything ahead, are starving because you had a cheesy vegetable pile for lunch, and can finally put on your mother's Oxford you've had in your closet since you graduated college, dinner parties can be fun. We had two friends come over to help us eat the pounds of cheese we'd acquired since Monday and tell us what a great job we'd done. JeffJeff and I got very wine-drunk in response. :)
Come Friday, I had been up at least two hours past my bedtime four days in a row. I wandered into the kitchen around 6 a.m. again, intending to make the potato-basil frittata I'd bought two pounds of boiling potatoes for earlier in the week. I was going to bring it to work still warm, re-wearing my Oxford, sealing the deal with my co-workers that I was chill and impressive and could handle this lifestyle — but then I sat down. I then stood right back up because, again, NYC, cockroaches, etc., but I stood and cried a little bit. How did she Ina do it? I did not have the strength nor the energy to power through another three meals. I just didn't. My Jeffrey-ish man was understanding, suggesting another oatmeal breakfast while he took charge on lunch: a kale salad with pecorino and pancetta.
This, of course, was the first "easy" Ina recipe that was "easy." I plodded off to work with a lil' Tupperware full of cheesy vegetables, resolved to redeem myself later that day. This was the homestretch. I could do it. I got home and made these bad boys (Camembert and prosciutto tartines) in less than 10 minutes.
My Attempt
B-O-O-M.
Ina's Version
I once again cancelled all plans that were not asking some of my best friends to please, please let me drop off pounds of food and dessert for them. I went to the gym. I got my nails done. I called my mother. She laughed a lot about the caloric stresses that had plagued my week. I came home. I calmly peeled and fried potatoes. I chipped only one of my nails in the process. This filled me with a sense of resigned calm. I made a beautiful and badass frittata. I slept.
Ina Garten is an evil and extraordinary genius whose lifestyle is not meant to be copied by mere mortals. I see you over there rolling your eyes, but can you blame me for trying? Who among us doesn't want a little bit of what Ina and the J-man have in their differently wonderful-yet-cockroach-filled lives? And when parsed, that's exactly what I got — a week full of fantastic food, five-to-seven pounds, and memories worth an Insta-lifetime, or whatever. Also, co-workers who are slightly upset by my consumption habits.
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