
When: July 20-24
Where: Rockefeller Center
What: The Kitchen of the Year
Times: Open daily from Monday, July 20, through Friday, July 24 (2 p.m. – 4 p.m. on Monday and 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. the rest of the week)
With Ina Garten, our generation’s Julia Child.
From the press release:
On July 20th, House Beautiful will be teaming up with best-selling cookbook author and Food Network star, Ina
Garten (the Barefoot Contessa), to showcase the Kitchen of the Year in Rockefeller Center.
This year’s kitchen will give visitors a first-hand look at Ina’s unique design and lifestyle ideas, and an invitation to experience her wildly popular cooking and entertaining philosophy.
In addition to the Kitchen, they will also be hosting “Tastes of Summer,” which will give visitors the chance to sample delicious food and beverages from some of New York City’s most renowned restaurants daily from 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. from Tuesday, July 21, through Thursday, July 23. Participating restaurants include The Sea Grill, Morrell Wine Bar & Café, AJ Maxwell’s, Magnolia Bakery, Rock Center Café, and many more.
And leading up to the opening of the Kitchen of the Year House Beautiful will be featuring all of their best kitchen content here
Somehow Ms Garten and her recipes fail to move me. I don’t know why that is.
I can highly recommend her recipe for Real Margaritas–the secret being lots of fresh squeezed lime juice and cheap tequila (Parties cookook). Second place would be Boeuf Bourguignon (Beef Stew with Red Wine, the Paris cookbook). And finally, I have made boatloads of her Old Fashioned Apple Crisp and Hot Mulled Cider for Thanksgiving weekends (Parties cookbook). On the subject of tequila, I was given some very, very fine tequila, along with a lot of other expensive alcohol, from the wonderful Alexander Payne. I found his wallet laying in the street, and once I was able to get in touch with him on the telephone, he insisted on giving me some sort of reward, which I refused. He persisted and finally talked me into all of his leftover alcohol, as he was cleaning out a house and needed to unload some groceries fast. The funny part was that I didn’t really know who he was at the time, and we met for this hand-off of contraband in my children’s school parking lot fairly close to dismissal time. He drove a very old station wagon and had very long hair at the time. He transferred the boxes of alcohol to my Volvo station wagon, a true mom car, and then we stood and chatted for awhile. Can you imagine what the folks at school thought, had they been looking out the window and seen this? We enjoyed the gift in a responsible manner, and it will always be a funny memory.
I love Ina. I enjoy watching her show.