Be Ready When the Luck Happens: A Memoir

In this memoir, Ina Garten shares her personal story, from her difficult childhood through her remarkable career. She recounts meeting her husband Jeffrey in college, working a bureaucratic job in Washington, D.C., and answering an advertisement for a specialty food store in the Hamptons that would become the Barefoot Contessa. Garten chronicles decades of personal challenges, adventures, and unexpected career turns that led her to become an author of bestselling cookbooks and a celebrated television host. She describes how her accomplishments resulted from hard work, audacious choices, and careful attention to detail. Throughout the memoir, delivered in her distinctive voice, Garten shares the life lessons she learned: do what you love because you'll excel at it, swing for the fences, and be ready when luck happens.