A Woman in the Kitchen? Groundbreaking.
Ina Garten's memoir, writing ruts, and never having enough for a dinner party.
The heat beat down on us, but the moment I found out there was one nearby, I insisted that we had to go to the farmer’s market.
Reusable grocery bag hanging limply over my shoulder, I looked over stand after stand of fresh produce and baked goods. There were mini donuts soaked in cinnamon sugar and blueberries two for five (or something like that which made me stock up my freezer with bags full since I truly believe fresh blueberries taste better than the store-bought ones). I paused under a stand with a red roof tilting over the top casting everything in a rosy glow.
I read the word sourdough alongside big loaves of bread and double chocolate brownies with thick, fudge icing on top. There was also a small jelly jar that was filled with a liquid decidedly not jelly.
Sourdough starter.
Picking up the glass jar, I’d never seen a starter in real life before. Like many, I have dabbled in the kitchen during the pandemic, specifically with bread. I made plain crusty loaves with active yeast, sometimes infused with Italian spices and even feta, but I had never delved into the world of sourdough. Sourdough was another world. Sourdough was another challenge that many home bakers eventually find themselves attempting by making their own starter out of flour and water, hoping it takes.
This sourdough starter was already started for me and being sold for only a few dollars. Though, the starter didn’t make sourdough bread. The rest of that challenge was up to me.
I purchased the starter from the enthusiastic woman behind the table. She also sent me home with a paper of how to take care of my new sourdough starter and her phone number to call if I had any questions (which I really should’ve taken advantage of).
Over the next few weeks, as I set up our new life in our new home, I attempted sourdough. At first, it was, well, a mess. There isn’t another word for it. The starter, even when mixed with water and flour, stuck to my fingers and somehow managed to get everywhere from the counter to the kitchen faucet to the fridge handle when I went in to get who knows what?
My first escapade into sourdough was a minor disaster. The dough rose, however, which was something and it wasn’t as dense and gummy as I later came to find was common for first time sourdough bakers. Instead, my loaf was simply too salty.
It was the “Salt of the Sea,” my boyfriend commented. Though, afterwards, he made sure that I also knew he would eat the whole loaf, likely not to upset my feelings.
But I wouldn’t force that upon anyone.
It was a loss of a loaf, but I tried again with a new recipe. And again.
Somewhere along the line, behind my narrow counter all by myself in this new little home I was building for us, I was beginning to find a comforting and happy place in the kitchen trying new recipes online and spending two hours stretching and folding my sourdough before letting it rise. Because the rest of my life was undergoing more than a minor change.
I moved halfway across the country after all. I was dealing with a new job I wasn’t in love with and new people. Quickly, I was finding the ease with which I usually wrote novels, my main job and dream in life was giving a little more trouble than even sourdough.
Ina Garten’s memoir Be Ready When The Luck Happens might’ve come at the perfect time for me. Right now, everything feels like I’m in flux. It marks my first book read in 2025, and honestly, I don’t think I could’ve picked a better read even if (unfortunately) reading it didn’t solve all my pessimistic problems.
Ina’s story was ultimately— somehow amongst the realness of coming of age and also falling in love while finding who she was through school, flying planes, to working in Washington DC with the man who encouraged her to purchase a random foods store up in the Hamptons— inspiring. Her journey is hopeful to a person who suffers from chronic overthinking, especially as of late when it comes to living in the present while also constantly looking towards the future.
But Ina simply said to herself often something along the lines of, “I’m bored, and that thing over there looks like it would be fun.”
Then, she did just that! Easy.
To me, it’s alien, but also exciting.
What if I did that? What if I looked around my world, even amongst the challenges and hardships and constantly just thought to myself, “That looks like fun” instead of “I need to do that right now, whether it is enjoyable or not. I have so much to do and complete 100% well, so I’m not a complete failure at what I desperately want,” until my heart starts to race with self-doubt and I’m mentally paralyzed.
My brain can barely form a sentence let alone a novel, which is startling to someone coming up on their fourth year of being a published author.
So far, I haven’t quite overcome my paralyzation whenever I sit down at my computer to work lately which makes me nervous and honestly, fearful for the dream a younger and maybe more hopeful me had for myself by this point. But, I’m hoping to slowly change my mindset to one of curiosity without fear. Excitement without pressure.
I have a feeling that being able to do that will help a lot of things.
I just need to get there.
I just need to be ready when the luck happens, and also find the joy in the small moments every day both in my mind when I’m writing, and also in the kitchen, oddly enough. The kitchen, it seems, is where I’m finding most peace, making sugar-sprinkled spice cookies and loaves of perfectly round sourdough that are not the Salt of the Sea anymore.
Maybe soon enough, I’ll find some of the Ina Garten cookbooks to take my admiration for her a step farther. Her guidance to simply live life authentically pushes me to a new level each new recipe I manage to at a time in my safe place which is becoming my kitchen. Hopefully much like
, I’ll find a few well-loved copies at an estate sale marked with sticky notes and scribbled notes in the margins to make the experience all the more magical.Perhaps, I’ll conquer my fear of roasting a whole chicken as
already has and has on her list of resolutions for 2025 she mentioned in her podcast, Bad on Paper— which I find wonderful.I’ll take my time to layer the perfect parfait or make a chocolate torte to savor each small slice at a time.
I’ll travel so that I have stories to tell when I’m old (as if someone somewhere might find inspiration from my own memoir that is likely never to be written) and agree with Ina Garten about just how amazingly fresh and delicious the food is in Provincial France as I stuff myself full with bread from the local boulangerie and cheese from the -monger.
I’ll set a table for a dinner party with ruffled napkins and plates of warm food everyone wants seconds of even if currently I am unsure who I would fill the chairs with.
At least not yet.
One day while finding all the fun and happy pieces, I will have the life I imagine. A library full of books in a small house that is crowded with laughter and a table of friends, laughing as they hold out their antique glasses I fill with slightly better than cheap wine I bought strictly for how pretty the label was.
So far, 2025 has brought a lot of moments where things feel so up in the air. I don’t know what this year has in store for me. I figured though, it would be a good year, and I’m trying to keep that in mind even while everything else feels so hectic all around me.
I wake up. I make it through work to pay the bills. I vent about not writing while also thinking about writing. I head to the kitchen in my sweatpants that I change into the moment I get home from my day job and bake for a little pick me up to indulge in at the end of the week.
What are you doing so far in 2025? Any recipes that you must pass on, Barefoot Contessa approved or not? Please share! Or maybe you too have been influenced by the Ina Garten memoir? If so, I am always up to chat more about this book and the greatness it has had in my life the past two weeks, even as I debate what is a moment of simple luck versus hard work when something comes up in good timing?
Are they just one and the same?
Or, does that just happen when you are fully enjoying yourself?
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