Ina Garten Has Surprising Thanksgiving Plans
Thanksgiving’s on the way but Ina Garten’s not busy planning a menu. One might expect her — and, frankly, every other Food Network star — to be gearing up for a big meal with family and friends. However, the Barefoot Contessa has other, more unexpected plans, this year.
Ina Garten isn’t cooking Thanksgiving dinner
Yes, really. Garten’s not cooking a big Thanksgiving dinner. So dismiss any images of her inside her East Hampton, New York, home or nearby “barn” working away.
She won’t be preparing classic Thanksgiving sides, her favorite pumpkin dessert, or any number of her Barefoot Contessa turkeys.
So what does the cookbook author have planned for Thanksgiving 2022? Garten shared just exactly what she’s got going on come turkey day in a Nov. 13 interview.
“I’m completely tired of cooking,” she told The New York Times before revealing her low-key plans. “We’re going out for Thanksgiving,” she said, adding that she let herself “off the hook this year.”
As for where the Be My Guest host will be dining come Thanksgiving Day, Garten didn’t divulge any of the details. Although, the 74-year-old’s been known to enjoy all sorts of different fare. From restaurants in the Hamptons to classic French cafés and In-N-Out Burger, she’s tried them all.
Ina Garten’s been tired of cooking before
This isn’t the first time Garten’s confessed to being tired of cooking. In 2020 she revealed at one point during her coronavirus (COVID-19) lockdown experience she’d had enough of home-cooked meals.
“Around the middle of May, I was like, curled up in a ball in bed, going, ‘I can’t make dinner anymore and I can’t not see my friends,” she recalled. “I was making lunch and dinner every day, I was doing Instagram every day so that people could have ideas for cooking from their pantry.”
“I lost the reason why I cook,” she continued. “It’s nice to cook for Jeffrey; I’m not saying I don’t like to. But I would never cook for myself. I cook because I love to take care of people.”
Ina Garten usually makes extra food on Thanksgiving so guests have leftovers to take home
A Garten Thanksgiving means lots of leftovers. Not only has she made an entire Thanksgiving dinner for the sole purpose of serving leftovers on Thanksgiving Day, but she typically cooks more food to ensure there are leftovers for everyone.
The reasoning behind it, she explained, came from her Barefoot Contessa store experience. “I remember at Barefoot Contessa on Friday we sold as much Thanksgiving dinner as we did on Thursday,” she told Bon Appétit in 2018.
“Everybody who had gone to somebody else’s house wanted turkey sandwiches with cranberry sauce the next day,” she continued. “So I always make sure that everybody has little bags with leftovers to take with them.”
“It makes it a little more difficult, but as long as you’re making one of something, you can make two. You can double it,” she added. “If somebody comes to my house for Thanksgiving, they’re missing one of the great things about Thanksgiving, which is leftovers.”
