ina garten summer

a kitchen witch with a library card

hello.

i know what you’re thinking. goths don’t dream about tomato galettes and barefoot dinner parties. but i’m here to tell you: you can romanticize the rot and the ricotta. you can light a candle that smells like damp stone and still want to host a dinner where everything tastes like lemon and love.

this is a summer for both. for those of us who read haunted novels in june, wear black to the farmer’s market, and stir things clockwise (just in case). for the ones who know that staying seasonal is a kind of spell, that soft herbs and soft jazz can be protection, and that food made with intention is its own kind of magic.

a kitchen witch with a library card

okay, moving into today’s letter…

the barefoot contessa fantasy

there’s a particular kind of summer i fantasize about. one that smells like lemon zest, fresh tomatoes, and sea salt, where the afternoons stretch long and slow and someone’s always slicing fruit in a sunlit kitchen. it’s not really about the house in the hamptons or the perfect charcuterie board. it’s about something more tender.

i call it an ina garten summer.

not because i want to throw fabulous dinner parties (though i wouldn’t mind that), but because i want to move through the season with that same kind of ease. soft clothes. jazz playing. herbs snipped straight from the garden. everything simple but considered. everything made with love. it’s a summer that isn’t trying to be anything but itself… a little salty, a little sweet, slightly overripe in the best way.

an ina garten summer is a barefoot rebellion against urgency. it’s cooking something slowly and reading in between steps. it’s setting the table even if no one’s coming over. it’s deciding that maybe the point of all this, the books, the meals, the scents, the rituals, isn’t to optimize life, but to taste it more deeply.

so this is your invitation: to a season made of butter and tomatoes and rereading old favorites and to movies that make you feel full. to a summer that feels like the kitchen at golden hour.

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food as love language

there’s something deeply romantic about feeding people, including yourself. not in a grand way, but in the soft labor of making something just because it will be delicious. the small devotion of remembering how someone takes their coffee or the intimacy of buttering toast for someone still half asleep.

food has always felt like a love language to me. a way of saying: i see you and i care. i made this because i wanted you to have something warm. sometimes i think the reason i love cooking is because it’s one of the only things in life that makes sense. you put time and care into something, and it gives back.

so much of that love lives in scent. it’s the rosemary on your fingertips, the garlic blooming in oil, the first burst of citrus when you slice a lemon. scent is how we remember meals long after they’re over, how we’re brought back, years later, to a summer kitchen or a particular evening or a person who once made you soup. herbs wilt on the counter. peaches perfume the air. even the smell of something slightly burned feels like home. it’s invisible, but it holds the memory.

there are summer meals that feel like love letters. fresh pasta with lemon and ricotta. cold watermelon eaten standing up. peaches sliced into bowls of cream. a cobbler perhaps. dinner outside, everything sticky with heat and sweetness, people talking over each other while the candles flicker. these are the kinds of moments that i never want to end.

and sometimes, it’s just for you. cooking for yourself can be a kind of soft defiance too, especially in a world that tells you not to bother. but there’s magic in making a beautiful lunch and eating it with a book open beside you. in roasting a chicken on a tuesday night just because. in stirring something on the stove while listening to music that makes you feel like the main character of your own life.

there’s no real recipe for an ina garten summer. just good ingredients, good intentions, and a willingness to slow down long enough to enjoy it.

a literary kitchen

some books make you hungry. not always for food, but for life, beauty, for slowness, for the kind of presence that feels almost edible. i think the kitchen is the perfect place to read. it’s where your hands are busy but your mind can wander. it’s where the sensual and the intellectual meet. in a literary kitchen, you can feed every part of yourself at once.

and if you’re like me, you start wondering what your favorite writers might have eaten, not as trivia, but as mood. not what they made for others, but what they reached for in solitude. maybe what they cooked when the words wouldn’t come or what their kitchens smelled like in summer. did clarice lispector crush herbs between her fingers while staring out the window? did virginia woolf keep a tin of biscuits beside her notebooks, breaking them gently in half while editing a sentence for the fifth time? what did marguerite duras eat while writing about longing? probably something plain, sharp, elemental. probably something she didn’t finish.

so here’s a little game i created: meals and moods inspired by the women i love to read. literary flavors, if you will.

clarice lispector
something slightly strange and full of feeling. she wouldn’t make a whole meal, just toast, burned a little, with soft butter and one perfect fig. maybe a spoonful of salted ricotta. eaten standing in the kitchen with the window open, barefoot, thinking about god.

pair with: the hour of the star: a fragment of a book that tastes like citrus and sorrow. it’s sharp, disjointed, intimate. like biting into something bitter and not spitting it out.

virginia woolf
she’d make lunch for herself at 3pm. a boiled egg, a bit of smoked trout, cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off. everything quiet, elegant, possibly melancholy. she eats in the garden with a notebook on her lap and crumbs on her skirt.

pair with: to the lighthouse: the literary equivalent of a slow summer meal. interior, reflective, full of emotional weather.

nora ephron
pasta, always. linguine with white wine, garlic, and too much parmesan. eaten at the kitchen counter while gossiping. dessert is lemon bars from the freezer. everything smells like butter and sarcasm.

pair with: heartburn: a recipe book in disguise. it’s heartbreak, wit, and comfort food, all in one.

joan didion
a dish of almonds. iced coffee going warm in a sweating glass. cigarettes once, now just the ghost of them. dinner is an afterthought, unless it’s someone else’s. she eats in fragments: celery, cheese, something cold straight from the fridge. everything is pared back, slightly clinical, but meaningful in its restraint.

pair with: the white album — disjointed, sharp, and eerily precise. a book that tastes like dust and steel and old air conditioning.

elena ferrante
anchovies on buttered bread. bitter greens sautéed in garlic. something cheap and filling, eaten standing up. not pretty food, survival food, rage food, love food. her kitchen is hot, the floor is cracked, and nothing tastes good unless it stings a little.

pair with: the days of abandonment — raw, volcanic, devastating in its clarity. the kind of story that stains.

anne carson
a bowl of pomegranate seeds. a piece of fish poached in milk. a fig, cut open and left. she eats in gestures. in myth. the fridge is almost empty, but nothing is missing. she moves between the stove and the page like a ritual, half in this world, half somewhere else.

pair with: autobiography of red — fractured, mythic, steeped in longing. prose that simmers just below a boil.

laurie colwin
chicken soup. buttered bread. a little pot of jam. something baked and imperfect and so full of love you want to cry. her kitchen is messy and warm and smells like someone just got hugged.

pair with: home cooking: one of the best food books ever written. funny, wise, full of heart and recipes that read like poems.

reading in the kitchen is its own kind of intimacy. the pot simmers. the fan hums. you turn the page with fingers dusted in flour. it’s a kind of ritual. a kind of joy. and if you look closely, every good book has a little bit of the kitchen in it: heat, hunger, tenderness, salt.

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barefoot dinner party

a fictional menu for a real life mood

every summer needs at least one dinner party. it doesn’t have to be big or elaborate. sometimes it’s just you and a friend, or you and a book, or you and the hum of the fan while something roasts in the oven. this menu is built for that barefoot kind of evening: laid back, generous, cozy, a little golden around the edges. the kind of night where time loses its shape and conversations feel like home.

you don’t need a special occasion. just something ripe, something warm, and a table that feels like yours.

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starter: tomato galette with thyme and whipped goat cheese
buttery, rustic, sun-warmed. the kind of thing you make when the tomatoes are so good they don’t need anything else. the crust is imperfect. the herbs were picked moments ago. it’s summer, folded into dough.

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salad: shaved fennel, citrus, and parmesan with olive oil and cracked pepper
crunchy and bright. bitter and sweet. refreshing in a way that makes you want to cry a little. best eaten outside, barefoot, with a cold drink in hand.

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main: roast chicken with dijon, white wine pan sauce, and herbed potatoes
the ina garten classic. warm, golden, deeply comforting. it makes your whole house smell like you have your life together, even if you don’t.

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cheese course: triple crème brie with honey and figs
soft, a little decadent. best eaten slowly, with your hands, while the sun sets and the wine softens your edges.

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dessert: lemon olive oil cake with mascarpone cream
bright and fragrant. the kind of cake that feels like a clean white sheet hung out in the sun. just sweet enough. something you eat in the quiet part of the evening.

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after dinner: chilled wine, dark chocolate, and a walk through the garden
no notes. just a perfect ending.

dessert and a movie

a late-night tray of sweets and stories

summer nights are made for dessert and movies. not the blockbuster kind, but the quiet ones: full of feeling and food and long silences that say everything. this is a collection of film and dessert pairings, curated for the ina garten summer state of mind. no rush, no pressure. just a little something sweet and something beautiful to end the day.

lemon bars + it’s complicated (2009)
tart, buttery, and a little indulgent. this is the quintessential barefoot contessa film. big kitchens, oversized sweaters, and late-night croissants in paris. everything about it is soft, grown-up, and slightly chaotic in the most delicious way.

homemade ice cream + call me by your name (2017)
cold and melting down your wrist. a dessert you eat outside in the heat, under a canopy of trees, while someone plays piano inside. this film is lush and languid, full of sun-drenched longing and late-afternoon shadows. it tastes like fruit and memory.

strawberry shortcake + julie & julia (2009)
light and layered. nostalgic, joyful, and made with love. this movie is pure comfort, full of butter, blog posts, and belief in the healing power of a really good meal. watch it while baking. watch it when you need to believe in yourself again.

dark chocolate tart + phantom thread (2017)
rich, intense, not for the faint of heart. this is a dessert that looks polite but has something dark simmering underneath, just like the film. it’s about love, obsession, control, and mushroom omelets. strange and stunning.

peach cobbler + roman holiday (1953)
vespa rides, borrowed time, gelato and goodbye. this one is fizzy and bright with just enough ache to make it timeless. audrey is sunlight personified, and the cobbler should be eaten warm, barefoot, at dusk.

pavlova with berries + the umbrellas of cherbourg (1964)
airy and aching. beautiful in a way that almost hurts. this film is a pastel dream: tragic and tender, like whipped cream that’s about to collapse. best watched with something delicate on your plate and something breaking in your heart.

each of these films has a little barefoot contessa in it. not in content, but in spirit. they slow you down. they make you hungry. they let you feel things you didn’t know you were missing.

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summer pantry

a quiet collection of things that make the season taste like something

this isn’t a grocery list. it’s a feeling. a sensory archive. the soft spine of a paperback bent open beside your lunch. olive oil catching the light in the bottle. a linen dress still warm from the sun. the rituals and objects that quietly hold a season together that you reach for without thinking.

this is what my ina garten summer is stocked with...

ingredients:
sea salt in a small ceramic bowl
good butter, unsalted, left out to soften
heirloom tomatoes still warm from the market
lemons for zesting into everything
olive oil that actually tastes like something
stone fruit, slightly bruised
cold rosé in the fridge, just in case
mascarpone in the fridge, with no plan for it
basil in a glass of water on the windowsill
peaches so ripe their juice runs down your arm

textures:
cotton napkins that no longer hold their shape
wooden cutting boards that smell like garlic
vintage silverware that doesn’t match
soft jazz playing in another room
a fan turning slowly while you read
the sound of a spoon scraping the bottom of a mixing bowl
chilled glasses sweating on the counter

books to keep in the kitchen:
home cooking by laurie colwin
more home cooking by laurie colwin
kitchen by banana yoshimoto
tender at the bone by ruth reichl
the silver palate cookbook by julee rosso and sheila lukins
the joy of cooking by irma s. rombauer
nantucket open-house by sarah leah chase
the barefoot contessa cookbook by ina garten
my life in france by julia child
the art of simple food by alice waters

rituals:
reading while the water boils
writing your grocery list in your journal
lighting a candle before cooking
letting yourself eat lunch slowly, even if you're alone
making the same cake over and over until you get it right
keeping the music low enough to hear the knife hit the cutting board
eating dinner outside, even if it’s just toast
folding tea towels while the oven preheats
re-reading recipe headnotes like they’re short stories
eating something warm while standing at the stove

scents:
tomato vines on your hands
lemon zest and rosemary
clean laundry and peaches
something baking, always
the first rain on hot pavement
basil crushed between your fingers
butter browning in the pan
sheets dried in the sun
candle wax and olive oil
vanilla extract on your wrist hours later
damp stone and mint after watering the garden
grilled corn and sea salt in the air
freshly cracked pepper and warm bread
coffee left too long in the pot
apricots softening in a bowl

fragrances and candles:
from the garden by maison marigela
vetiver ecarlate by l’artisan perfumeur
aedes de venustas by aedes
molecule 01 + mandarin

oh… paradisi by jorum studio of course.

candles:

summer rain by byredo

under the trees by trudon

citronella by diptyque

you don’t need much. just a few beautiful things. a few good meals, a book to keep you company, and a willingness to slow down and be here for it. summer doesn’t last, but this part of it. the part that feels like yours can stay with you.

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the slow joy of the ina summer

not everything has to be a project. not every moment needs to be productive. sometimes it’s enough to make something good and eat it while it’s still warm. sometimes it’s enough to read one paragraph that makes you feel more alive. sometimes it’s enough to just be in the kitchen, barefoot, stirring something gently, letting the day unfold without asking too much of it.

the ina garten summer is a reminder that beauty doesn’t have to be complicated. it can look like a bowl of cherries on the counter. or a stack of books on the floor. or the way olive oil pools in a pan when the light hits just right. it’s about noticing. tending. softening. it’s about feeding yourself, and not just with food.

you don’t have to be in the hamptons. you don’t need the copper cookware or the perfect hydrangeas. what matters is that you’re here, paying attention. making the ordinary feel like a kind of celebration.

so take your time. roast something slowly. reread a favorite book. eat dessert first. listen to music while the windows are open. set the table for one. let summer be a little messier, a little sweeter, a little more yours.

how easy is that?

okay, that’s all for today.

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i love you.

bye.

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