11 December Sunday

I’ve had it with Ina Garten. She’s built an entire career advocating for the homemade meals, recipes, cookbooks, shows devoted to cooking at home, finding great ingredients, serving them to our loved ones? Now, she is advocating pre-made foods, even saying she loves Trader Joe’s Apple Tart. Now, I’m not saying there is anything wrong with Trader Joe’s Apple Tart, I am saying that Ina Garten is a home cook, a passionate advocate for home cooking, someone who is trying to help you develop your cooking creativity. It’s not that we don’t find little short cuts here and there, get the frozen phyllo!! That’s not what’s up with Ina these days. She’s saying, pre-made dishes and meals are ok. She said it saves a lot of stress. For those of us that still love cooking, it is not stressful. Going to a restaurant or having one delivered does not make anyone a cook. I don’t understand. Maybe she doesn’t understand. If she is getting tired of always making the food, if she’d rather shake a martini and hang out with her husband, I completely understand that. But don’t tell your public, who are younger and looking for solid, home cooking advice from a well known expert, that it is just as good and less stressful to buy ready made meals as it is to make one. It isn’t.