Ina Garten’s cooking up comfort
When the pandemic first forced Americans into a state of hibernation, the kitchen was a place of temporary chaos fueled by concerns about how to get food, stockpile pantry staples and create meals from disparate ingredients. That initial agitation soon gave way to a more dedicated, purposeful attitude in the kitchen as home cooks learned to bake bread, fashion stews, improvise casseroles and traffic in abundance that led to plenty of hearty meals with leftovers.
The common denominator became cooking up delicious counterpoints to disruption — nourishing, healing meals for times of uncertainty and civic unrest. If ever we needed comfort foods, it’s now.
Food Network superstar Ina Garten had no idea her new cookbook would arrive at a time when Americans would desperately need comfort foods, and that the very title of the recipe collection would define how the country is eating. Two years ago, when she began work on “Modern Comfort Food,” Garten knew her 12th cookbook would be published just before the November elections — itself a screaming need for a giant slice of chocolate cake and a bowl of butter-logged mashed potatoes.
“I knew that was going to be a stressful time,” she said. “But layered on top of everything else, it’s a terrible time.”
Comfort, she presciently saw, is in high demand.
And so are Garten’s recipes. Known for no-fail dishes yielding deep, satisfying flavors, Garten has enjoyed a longstanding reputation for delivering recipes that work.
“It’s my absolute goal withmy cookbooks — that every recipe is successful and comes out exactly as it looks in the photo,” she said. “I want the recipes to be easier than you expect and more delicious.”
“Modern Comfort Food” brims with indulgent, crave-worthy stuff: spinach and artichoke dip, baked fish chowder, Maine lobster stew, beef stew, roasted chicken and potatoes, roasted sausages with peppers and onions, cheesy chicken enchiladas, baked rigatoni with lamb ragout, truffled macaroni and cheese, cheddar and scallion creamed corn, bittersweet chocolate cake, baked apples and giant chocolate chip cookies. It also includes Garten’s crisp, oven-baked potatoes that actress Emily Blunt shared with her — a recipe that during the pandemic “broke the internet” when it was published on Garten’s website.
“It crashed. Literally, it just shut down,” Garten recalls. “We had to double the cloud or whatever that is. These are the best roast potatoes you’ve ever had.”
The book’s recipes reflect not just the way Americans are eating but how Garten has approached her pandemic kitchen.
“It has changed me, that’s for sure,” she said. “I used to hate leftovers; to reheat meals was boring. It was never as good as the first time.”
But now Garten says she looks forward to recipe leftovers that allow her to “make them into something completely different.”
The pandemic changed her in other ways, too. It’s made her more grateful, she said. “If we just take it one day at a time, just see how lucky we are when so many people have had such a hard time,” she said. “I’m lucky I can work at home. I’m lucky to be quarantined with someone I’m crazy about.”
She’s enjoying simple pleasures that food brings — the same kind of comforts thatmade a brownie so cathartic after 9/11 or a simple burger and fries so emotionally rewarding during the 2008 financial crisis. Today, those joys could be as direct as a slice of pizza, a glass of wine on the patio, she said. Or maybe generous sips from the giant Cosmopolitan cocktail she created during the pandemic that also caused an internet sensation.
Through all the pandemic upheavals, the good recipe ruled, she said.
“I have a new appreciation for whywe need really easy recipes,” she said. “If you’ve gone through the trouble of going to the store to get ingredients and making the effort to cook, I want that recipe to be good and want to make it again and again.”