The Superfan Who Cooked Every Single One Of Ina Garten's Recipes
Ina Garten — also known as the Barefoot Contessa — is one of the most recognizable names in the culinary world. While being a television chef was her second career (previously, she had worked for the White House on nuclear energy policy), she has amassed quite the following since she published her first cookbook in 1999 (via Food Network). Along with hosting her popular "Barefoot Contessa" show on Food Network, Garten has gone on to start her own line of pantry products and publish many more cookbooks full of entertaining-friendly recipes for home cooks.
Plenty of people have whipped up an Ina Garten dish, even Oprah. But few have made every single one of the Barefoot Contessa's recipes. That's an honor that Trent Pheifer can now claim. The blogger behind "Store Bought Is Fine" started tackling Garten's arsenal of dishes in 2015, describing himself as the "store-bought version of Ina — not the real deal, but someone at home making it work." This month, he finally cooked the last recipe. Here's what his culinary journey was like, including why he even started it in the first place.
Pheifer made 1,272 Ina Garten dishes
When Pheifer first started cooking Garten's recipes in 2015 in what he describes on his blog as his own "Julie & Julia" experiment, he had no idea that it would end on Sunday, March 13, 2022 — and with him cooking live on Zoom with the Barefoot Contessa herself. "Six years, five months, and three days later, with Ina's Boston Cream Pie, I've officially completed every single one of Ina's 1,272 recipes from her cookbooks and TV show!" he posted on Instagram over the weekend, along with the video of the pair baking together virtually. "And the icing (ganache in this case) on the cake is that Ina herself walked me through completing the final recipe."
Pheifer told Good Morning America that the experiment started with him and his roommates binge-watching "Barefoot Contessa" and deciding that he needed to improve his skills in the kitchen. "At 30, I figured I was long overdue for learning how to cook," he explained. "I honestly thought I'd last three months before moving on, but here we are. Ina hooked me." He said that throughout the project, Garten was "warm, gracious, generous and kind" and that he learned how to make dishes he never would have imagined himself tackling a few years ago — like baked Alaska. "She's taught me practically everything I know about cooking, and it was such a rare opportunity," he raved. While Pheifer has reached his initial goal, the project will continue as long as Garten keeps putting out recipes; he said he'll be cooking through her next cookbook later this year.