Ina Garten Has a New Book Coming Out Unlike Any of Her Others

I have no idea how often I’ve turned to Ina Garten for cooking inspiration, but if the food-stained condition of her cookbooks on my shelf is any indication, it’s been frequent. I’m in love with her pasta e fagioli and have been enjoying a bowl or two weekly this winter. And I’m not the only one here at Allrecipes who trusts her recipes and cooking advice.

When Ina says it’s okay to add a few things to store-bought mashed potatoes to make them taste homemade, our ears perk up. When she shares a tip for fluffy scrambled eggs, we start cracking eggs. In short, if Ina shares something, we take note.

Ina, often referred to as the Barefoot Contessa (the title of her former cooking show and former specialty food store in the Hamptons), has a new book coming out in which she’ll share personal things she’s previously only given us tidbits about. After publishing 11 cookbooks, our trusted cooking mentor is publishing a memoir. 

What We Know About Ina Garten’s Upcoming Memoir

Details about the memoir are sparse, but here are a few of them.

Ina hopes to inspire others. In a statement on Celadon Book’s website—the Macmillan Publishers division handling the memoir—Ina shared her reason for writing the book. 

“By finding a way to do what I love for a living – cooking – I’ve been fortunate to build a career that has not only been incredibly rewarding but has brought people together through the power of home cooking,” she said. “I hope my book will inspire readers to find their own unique story.”

She’s drawing on her childhood for parts of the book. It’s not surprising that anyone writing a memoir would draw upon their childhood, and Ina revealed in a BBC News interview last year that she’s doing just that. She shared in the interview that she knew she didn’t want to have children when she got married because she never wanted to re-create her childhood. In that conversation, she said that as she’s writing her memoir, she’s “looking back at her childhood” and realizes that many of her life decisions were based on those early life experiences. 

Ina quietly let us all know the release date. She’s made no big fanfare about her upcoming memoir, but her Instagram account’s bio recently added the release date: “Memoir coming out October 1st 2024.”

What don’t we know about the memoir yet? So many things, including its title. For now, we all have to be content with knowing that it exists and that we’ll be able to get our hands on it on Oct. 1 to glean a new kind of inspiration from one of our favorite cooks.