Thank You

 

In her first cookbook, The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook, published in 1999, Ina thanks a host of characters:

• Frank Newbold - High-end real estate broker and business partner to Ina. He encouraged her to start writing. She wrote a column in both House Beautiful and Martha Stewart Living during his long-term partner's (Stephen Drucker) tenure as editor-in-chief at the publications. (Martha Stewart was a mentor to Ina too and wrote the foreword in her first cookbook. She is thanked also.)
• Diana Stratta - She purchased the Barefoot Contessa food specialty store in the Hamptons from her after seeing an ad in the New York Times in 1978. It was already named (and open!). Ina moved from Washington DC to the Hamptons to run the store. She had never visited the locale. She had never run a business. She had never worked in the food industry.
• Parker Hodges, who was the chef and a business partner (now a restaurant owner) at the Barefoot Contessa (and has quite a few of her recipes named after him) and Amy Baiata (now Amy Baiata Forst), who was a business partner (now a real estate agent). In 1999, Ina sold the Barefoot Contessa store to Parker. Five years later, she would buy the business back from Hodges.
• Harry Goodale
• Suzanna Guiliano, a friend (and her accountant)
• Paul Hodges (Parker's brother, who also worked in the kitchen at Barefoot Contessa and is now co-owner with his brother of The Canal Cafe.)
• Shawn Miller
• Alex Lazen
• Peter Ranft
• Larry Hayden, a pastry chef who supplied her books with several recipes
• Melanie Acevedo, who was the photographer for the cookbook
• Rori Spinelli, the food stylist for the cookbook
• Denise Canter, the stylist
• Cecily Stranahan, a now retired psychotherapist and an interfaith minister
• Pam Bernstein, Ina's agent
• Roy Finamore, Ina's editor

Several of these folks are still working with her on her latest cookbook, Modern Comfort Food.

She also thanks those who contributed recipes to the cookbook:

• Devon Fredericks and Susan Costner, owners of Loaves & Fishes specialty store in Sagaponack, NY (Ina singles out their cookbooks as one of her favorites in a Splendid Table podcast interview and here too.)
• Eli Zabar of the Amagansett Farmer’s Market 
• Sarah Chase of The Open House Cookbook (another of Ina's favorites). She founded the Massachusetts specialty food shop and catering business Que Sera Sarah.
• Brent Newsom from Brent Newsom Catering

In addition, she thanks a whole host of people who let her use their homes as makeshift photography studios and others, including Crate & Barrel, who loaned her their kitchenware to photograph too.

With the publication of this book, Ina ends a 20-year career as the purveyor of a specialty food store and begins a now over-20-year career as a cookbook author and TV and social media personality.