Ina Garten says you won't get inspired sitting at home alone

Pumpkin muffins, Philly fun, and some good sandwiches

Oct 14, 2024

This week, I took a day off and headed to Philly to see some very important people: Sandra and Maya (who is so cute) and Ina Garten, who is on tour for her memoir, Be Ready When the Luck Happens. In conversation with Laura Linney (all I could think about was Love Actually), she talked about finding inspiration, running a retail business, marriage advice, and pushing past no’s throughout her career. It was tremendously inspiring and her science background really came through as she described her methods for figuring things out—she moved parmesan cheese all over her store, Barefoot Contessa, until she figured out where it sold best. She realized the best stores are a little too small because no one wants to enter an empty space, they want to be where people are. She said no to Food Network for a year and a half until she saw a British cooking program that felt like her (Nigella) and she hired an all British team to make her show. Some of her team members have married each other, someone write that romcom!

She talked about the concept of mattering and how research suggests that’s how we find satisfaction from life, by creating community and in her case, cooking for her family and friends and teaching millions of people to cook through her books and shows. It left me with a lot to think about and I can’t wait to read the book.

Now, let’s dive in.

Something to cook:

I made my first pumpkin recipe of the season: Dan Pelosi’s pumpkin cardamom muffins. It blessedly uses a full can of pumpkin and per the comments, I halved the crumble topping and added some oats to it. They baked up beautifully.

It’s apple season and I’ve been bring apples to work for an afternoon snack. I love an apple with some unexpected cheddar.

I did some Sunday cooking and roasted potatoes with apple cider vinegar (from a recipe in Caroline Chambers’ cookbook) and braised some kale that was buried in the freezer with garlic and tomatoes. I definitely need to go grocery shopping but it’s also satisfying to make something from nothing.

Is my manicure a business expense? Who knows but I loved this heart shaped potato.

Smoothie season is winding down which means the return of oatmeal season. I’m always looking for new things to put in oatmeal—I just did dried figs and walnuts, which was good.

Something to order:

We had a team lunch/pre wedding sendoff for Emma with sandwiches from Depanneur. Their beet and egg sandwich is really good and we had some confetti cake from Whole Foods.

Aunt Sharon came to town and we had family dinner at Montesacro. I love their back room and their cacio e pepe, half the tablee ordered it.

In Philly, Isa and I picked up lunch at Ba Le Bakery, known for its spring rolls and Bahn Mi (I got the tofu one). It was so good and such a treat to hang out with friends on a Wednesday during the day. We took it for granted in college!

After we picked up Maya from day care, we got dinner at Fiorella. Maya had her first focaccia and we split a bunch of vegetarian pastas. They also had delicious peanut butter ice cream with a pretzel topping and October weather was lovely for outdoor dining—they even had gourds on the table.

Dale was in the Lower East Side and brought home Scarr’s, some of my favorite pizza. They nail a classic cheese slice and the vegan caesar salad is so good.

On Saturday, Dale, Tilden and I grabbed drinks at FourFiveSix (great indoor and outdoor seating) and then Tilden and I had dinner at Good Thanks. We split the coconut curry mussels, roasted cabbage, and caesar salad. It filled our “I need a vegetable” craving and was very good.