A colleague mentioned this book over coffee early last year. They found it a good leadership lesson book, and its closing message (and title) to be inspirational, a motivation to keep going even when things are hard so you can take advantage of any lucky break from a place of strength. That sounded good to me, and though I’d never read or watched anything by Garten before, I wanted to get the elusive “memoir” category off my list :-).
Garten’s life story is not exactly inspirational, but pleasantly interesting enough. Born into a comfortable life in a cold and mildly abusive family in Connecticut, she met her future husband (economist Jeffrey Garten) when she was just 16 years old and pretty much didn’t look back. They married when Ina was half-way through college, and eventually ended up in Washington DC, both working in various government roles. On a seeming whim, in 1978 she chucked her government job to take over a speciality food store called Barefoot Contessa (which became her persona) in the Hamptons. From there, her retail and then entertainment empire was born, and she’s been the driving force ever since. She has no formal cooking training (although she picked up a lot along her journey) so focuses primarily on simplicity in her recipes.
While there are a few nuggets and stories exemplifying sound leadership, there wasn’t anything especially revolutionary – learn from bad bosses as well as good ones; collaboration is often better than competition; assess and accept risks; own your mistakes. Garten is a bit of a name-dropper, casually referring to having friends like Mel Brooks, Richard Avedon, and Martha Stewart over for dinner, but doesn’t credit any of these famous friends as leaders or mentors. However, she does give credit where it’s due to her staff. Unlike Martha, Ina is not a task master but relies very much on the people around her picking up what needs doing and getting on with it. Rather than demanding people do things to exacting standards, she works hard herself with a perpetual smile, and inspires people around her to work the same way. Such down-to-earth charm has served her well.
When describing the beginning of her Contessa life, she refers often to the inspiration she took from trailblazing feminists like Gloria Steinam. She talks about how she wanted to be an example for the younger women working for her, to role model strength and independence. Which is fine, except…much of what she was able to do, especially in the early years of her business, was bankrolled by her husband. Indeed, much of what she talks about in their marriage and relationship shows him as kind, supportive, engaged, and not demanding in any way. So, I was bothered when she wrote that she felt she was not “an equal partner in the marriage”, going so far as to initiate a trial separation so she could be on her own. This journey of independence read as shallow to me, and ungrateful. In my reading, the expectations for her to be a traditional wife were entirely hers, not his. While that doesn’t make the angst less real for her, it felt disingenuous of her to blame it on him. I felt the definition of “equal partner” was shallow, taking a short view of one immediate circumstance rather than the long view of their life together, past, present, and future, and the ebb and flow of the contributions and accommodations for each other over their lifetimes.
Temporary relationship blip aside, Ina and Jeffrey remained married (nearly 60 years), and she has created an empire, employing many (likely mostly women) and bringing joy through her books and tv shows. My favourite line from the book is her quoting someone else about marriage: a good marriage is one where each person thinks they got the better deal. I can see how that applies to them, and it applies in most successful relationships I know of, including my own.
As for the titular message? It doesn’t come up until the very last page, and rang somewhat hollow as the breaks in her life and career were less about luck and more about taking a leap, looking for an opportunity rather than being prepared for when one appeared. With the accompanying privilege in her life, those leaps and the luck came a bit easier than she lets on.
Overall, the book was okay – light and accessible, with good food and travel stories. I’m not inspired to read any more of her books, as I feel I now know enough about her. She seems like a pleasant, perpetually cheery, and somewhat self-centred woman who has built a good life with those around her.
Fate: little book library.
8 – female author
23 – memoir
24 – food
25 – new author to me
rclr 
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